Solar ultraviolet radiation exposure, and incidence of childhood acute lymphocytic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a US population-based dataset

Acute lymphocytic leukaemia (ALL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) are among the commonest types of childhood cancer. Some previous studies suggested that elevated ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposures increase ALL risk; many more indicate NHL risk is reduced.

We assessed age<20 ALL/NHL incidence in Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results data using AVGLO-derived UVR irradiance/cumulative radiant exposure measures, using quasi-likelihood models accounting for underdispersion, adjusted for age, sex, racial/ethnic group and other county-level socioeconomic variables.

There were 30,349 cases of ALL and 8062 of NHL, with significant increasing trends of ALL with UVR irradiance (relative risk (RR) = 1.200/mW/cm² (95% CI 1.060, 1.359, p = 0.0040)), but significant decreasing trends for NHL (RR = 0.646/mW/cm² (95% CI 0.512, 0.816, p = 0.0002)). There was a borderline-significant increasing trend of ALL with UVR cumulative radiant exposure (RR = 1.444/MJ/cm² (95% CI 0.949, 2.197, p = 0.0865)), and significant decreasing trends for NHL (RR = 0.284/MJ/cm² (95% CI 0.166, 0.485, p < 0.0001)). ALL and NHL trend RR is substantially increased among those aged 0–3. All-age trend RRs are most extreme (increasing for ALL, decreasing for NHL) for Hispanics for both UVR measures.

Our more novel finding, of excess UVR-related ALL risk, is consistent with some previous studies, but is not clear-cut, and in need of replication.