Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Far Eastern State Medical University, Khabarovsk, Russia.
Front Public Health. 2024 May 2;12:1295643. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1295643. eCollection 2024.
Leukemia is the most common cancer in children. Its incidence has been increasing worldwide since 1910th, suggesting the presence of common sources of the disease, most likely related to people's lifestyle and environment. Understanding the relationship between childhood leukemia and environmental conditions is critical to preventing the disease. This discussion article examines established potentially-carcinogenic environmental factors, such as vehicle emissions and fires, alongside space weather-related parameters like cosmic rays and the geomagnetic field. To discern the primary contributor, we analyze trends and annual variations in leukemia incidence among 0-14-year-olds in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Russia from 1990 to 2018. Comparisons are drawn with the number of vehicles (representing gasoline emissions) and fire-affected land areas (indicative of fire-related pollutants), with novel data for Russia introduced for the first time. While childhood leukemia incidence is rising in all countries under study, the rate of increase in Russia is twice that of other nations, possibly due to a delayed surge in the country's vehicle fleet compared to others. This trend in Russia may offer insights into past leukemia levels in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Our findings highlight vehicular emissions as the most substantial environmental hazard for children among the factors examined. We also advocate for the consideration of potential modulation of carcinogenic effects arising from variations in cosmic ray intensity, as well as the protective role of the geomagnetic field. To support the idea, we provide examples of potential space weather effects at both local and global scales. The additional analysis includes statistical data from 49 countries and underscores the significance of the magnetic field dip in the South Atlantic Anomaly in contributing to a peak in childhood leukemia incidence in Peru, Ecuador and Chile. We emphasize the importance of collectively assessing all potentially carcinogenic factors for the successful future predictions of childhood leukemia risk in each country.
白血病是儿童中最常见的癌症。自 1910 年以来，它在全球范围内的发病率一直在上升，这表明存在这种疾病的共同来源，很可能与人们的生活方式和环境有关。了解儿童白血病与环境条件之间的关系对于预防这种疾病至关重要。本文讨论了已确定的潜在致癌环境因素，例如车辆排放和火灾，以及与空间天气相关的参数，如宇宙射线和地磁。为了确定主要的致病因素，我们分析了 1990 年至 2018 年美国、加拿大、澳大利亚和俄罗斯 0-14 岁儿童白血病发病率的趋势和年度变化。将这些数据与车辆数量（代表汽油排放）和受火灾影响的土地面积（表明与火灾相关的污染物）进行了比较，并首次为俄罗斯引入了新数据。尽管所有研究国家的儿童白血病发病率都在上升，但俄罗斯的增长率是其他国家的两倍，这可能是由于该国的汽车保有量增长滞后于其他国家。俄罗斯的这一趋势可能为我们了解美国、加拿大和澳大利亚过去的白血病水平提供了线索。我们的研究结果表明，在研究的所有国家中，车辆排放是儿童面临的最大环境危害因素。我们还主张考虑宇宙射线强度变化引起的致癌效应的潜在调节，以及地磁的保护作用。为了支持这一观点，我们提供了在局部和全球范围内可能的空间天气效应的例子。额外的分析包括来自 49 个国家的统计数据，突显了南大西洋异常地区地磁下降在秘鲁、厄瓜多尔和智利儿童白血病发病率峰值中的作用。我们强调了集体评估所有潜在致癌因素对于成功预测每个国家儿童白血病风险的重要性。
