Exposure to high-temperature combustion products and volatile organic compounds before birth and shortly after probably cause most cases of childhood cancers and leukemias, a UK researcher says.

Data from the study suggest that a compound called 1,3 butadiene, which is associated with engine exhausts and is used in the manufacture of synthetic rubber, is particularly hazardous.

“It’s likely that the mother inhales the stuff and concentrates it and passes it to the fetus and the placenta,” Dr. E. George Knox told AMN Health.

Knox, at the University of Birmingham, compared places of birth and death in cases of fatal child cancers recorded between 1966 and 1980 to maps of local atmospheric emissions of different chemicals.

His analysis, in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, ties the risk of childhood cancers to polluted “hotspots”.

Among non-methane volatile organic compounds, the pattern seen with 1,3-butadiene “strongly suggests a specific association.”

This compound “is known to cause cancer in experimental animals,” Knox said, “but studies of occupational exposure have produced mixed results.”

He added, “Americans are particularly keen on strict control of 1,3 butadiene, but in Britain, official reports are cautious and they are waiting for more data. I’m saying, don’t wait any more.”

Other emissions associated with significant birth proximity were carbon dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide (the combustion products of fossil fuels), and benzene, benz(a)pyrene and dioxins.

The researcher’s calculations suggest that “most childhood cancers are probably initiated by close perinatal encounters with one or more of these high emissions sources.”

SOURCE: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, February 2005.