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Cancers and immune related diseases associated with Down's syndrome: a record linkage study
Author(s) -
Reading Richard
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
child: care, health and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1365-2214
pISSN - 0305-1862
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2214.2005.00500_6.x
Subject(s) - medicine , cohort , relative risk , record linkage , asthma , rate ratio , cohort study , disease , thyroid disease , confidence interval , down syndrome , diabetes mellitus , pediatrics , thyroid , endocrinology , population , psychiatry , environmental health
Objective To determine the risk of cancers and selected immune‐related diseases in people with Down's syndrome, relative to risk in other people. Design Cohort analysis of a linked dataset of abstracts of hospital and death records; results expressed as the ratios of rates of disease in people with and without Down's syndrome. Setting The former Oxford health region, England, 1963–1999. Subjects Cohort of 1453 people with Down's syndrome and cohort of 460 000 people with other conditions for comparison. Main outcomes As expected, the rate ratio for leukaemia was substantially elevated in people with Down's syndrome: it was 19‐fold higher (95% confidence intervals 10.4–31.5) than the rate in the comparison cohort. For other cancers combined, excluding leukaemia, the rate ratio was not significantly elevated (1.2; 0.6–2.2). The risk of testicular cancer was increased (12.0; 2.5–35.6), although this was based on only three cases in the cohort of subjects with Down's syndrome. Significantly, elevated risks were found for coeliac disease (4.7; 1.3–12.2), acquired hypothyroidism (9.4; 3.4, 20.5), other thyroid disorders, and type 1 diabetes mellitus (2.8; 1.0–6.1). A decreased risk was found for asthma (0.4; 0.2–0.6). Conclusions Our data add to the body of information on the risks of co‐morbidity in people with Down's syndrome. The finding on asthma needs to be confirmed or refuted by other studies.