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Risk of congenital inguinal hernia in siblings: a record linkage study
Author(s) -
Jones Michael E.,
Swerdlow Anthony J.,
Griffith Myfanwy,
Goldacre Michael J.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.667
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3016
pISSN - 0269-5022
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-3016.1998.00115.x
Subject(s) - medicine , inguinal hernia , relative risk , hernia , risk factor , case control study , confidence interval , record linkage , pediatrics , demography , surgery , population , environmental health , sociology
Using data from the Oxford Record Linkage Study (ORLS), we conducted a case‐control study to estimate the sex‐specific risks of inguinal hernia in siblings of children with this condition. There were 1921 male and 347 female cases born during 1970–86 who were operated on for inguinal hernia at ages 0–5 years during 1970–87, with 12 886 male and 2534 female control subjects. The relative risk of inguinal hernia was 5.8 [95% confidence interval 4.0–8.4] for brothers of male cases and 4.3 [2.1–8.7] for brothers of female cases (both relative to brothers of control subjects). The relative risk was 3.7 [1.8–7.9] for sisters of male cases and 17.8 [6.9–46.3] for sisters of female cases (both relative to sisters of control subjects). The pattern of sex‐dependent risks, particularly the large risk for sisters of female cases, suggests a multifactorial threshold model for the disease. Girls have much lower rates of inguinal hernia than boys, and if these rates are low because of a low susceptibility to disease due to the absence of a sex‐related risk factor, then those girls who develop disease might have a potentially large contribution to susceptibility from genetic or intrauterine risk factors unrelated to sex.