Association between vaccinations and childhood rhabdomyosarcoma in Texas
Abstract
Childhood rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a rare malignant tumor of the developing skeletal muscle for which few susceptibility factors have been found. Previous research from our group has shown that childhood vaccinations may have a protective role in childhood RMS. To explore this association in Texas during a more recent time period, we used data from the Texas Cancer Registry and the Department of State Health Statistics to compare vaccination rates and childhood RMS at a county and public health region level. Cases were diagnosed between 1995–2011 and were frequency matched to controls on sex and year of birth. For the final analysis, a total of n=139 cases and n=2085 controls were examined. Vaccine rates were assessed categorically as ≤50 th percentile (reference) and >50th percentile. Multi-level logistic regression models were used to calculate an odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for each exposure, adjusted for age, birth year, maternal ethnicity, maternal age at birth and an area-based poverty measure. We evaluated vaccination rates and childhood RMS at both a county and public health region level. There was no evidence that completion of individual vaccines or vaccination series were associated with childhood RMS.
Subject Area
Medicine|Public health|Epidemiology|Oncology
Recommended Citation
Sankaran, Hari, "Association between vaccinations and childhood rhabdomyosarcoma in Texas" (2016). Texas Medical Center Dissertations (via ProQuest). AAI10126780.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/dissertations/AAI10126780