Open AccessMothers of children with autism have different rates of cancer according to the presence of intellectual disability in their child
Author(s) -
Jenny Fairthorne,
Helen Leonard,
Nick de Klerk,
Andrew Whitehouse
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
international journal of population data science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.602
H-Index - 7
ISSN - 2399-4908
DOI - 10.23889/ijpds.v1i1.17
Subject(s) - proband , autism , hazard ratio , intellectual disability , autism spectrum disorder , medicine , cancer , pediatrics , psychiatry , confidence interval , genetics , gene , mutation , biology
Background Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Intellectual Disability (ID) are neurodevelopmental disorders with a strong genetic component. Increasing research attention has focused on whether the genetic factors that convey susceptibility for these conditions, also influence the risk for other health conditions, such as cancer. AimsWe compared hospital admissions and treatment/services for cancer in mothers of ASD probands to other mothers.
MethodsUsing West Australian databases, we calculated the hazard ratios (HRs) of hospitalisations for cancer in case and comparator mothers.Results In the multivariate model and compared to mothers of children with no ASD or ID, mothers of children with ASD without ID were more likely to have had an admission associated with a cancer diagnosis [HR=1.33(95% CI: 1.1, 1.7)] or a treatment or service associated with cancer [HR=1.54(95% CI: 1.1, 2.2)]. Furthermore, these HRs were significantly greater (p-values < 0.00005) than the corresponding HRs for mothers of children with ASD with ID [HR=1.05(95% CI: 0.8, 1.3) and HR= 0.97(95% CI: 0.7, 1.4)].
Conclusions We suggest that genes increasing the risk of autism without ID and cancer have common pathways and that the genetic basis of ASD with ID differs from ASD without ID.