I4C (International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium)

Duration

2005-

Coordinator

WESTAT (with Harvard Medical School, University of Pennsylvania, and Daston Communications)

Funded by

NICHD/NIH/HHS
NIEHS/NIH/HHS
CDC/HHS
EPA

Globally, a number of large infant/child prospective studies have been launched to examine environmental and genetic determinants of common diseases of children, such as asthma, developmental delay and behaviour abnormalities, as well as the consequences of early exposure for adult diseases. While several of these studies are relatively very large—over 100 000 subjects—and are adequately powered to examine their principal outcomes of interest, none of the individual studies are of sufficient size to examine the relationship between exposures they are measuring and rare diseases such as childhood cancer. To date, the few established risk factors for specific forms of childhood cancer have largely been identified in case-control studies. Yet, despite many such investigations evaluating postulated risk factors for paediatric malignancies during the past five decades, few consistently established aetiologic factors are known (Brown et al, IJE 2007, click here for access to a paper).

The I4C was established in 2005 and brings together large cohorts from several countries. CREAL participates in the steering committee (M Kogevinas) and also contributes with data from INMA and RHEA cohorts. CREAL is actively involved in the development of the protocols of one of the two main areas, specifically environmental exposures. After the last meeting (IARC, November 2009 click here to read minutes of the meeting) both an environmental and a genomics working groups were established. The environmental group should develop protocols on specific exposures including chemicals, radiations and others.

For further information: http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/research/internationalinvolvement/Pages/childhoodcancercohortconsortium.aspx