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Biomedical subjects

L Kinlen

Publications and source records attributed to L Kinlen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Childhood leukaemia and ordnance factories in west Cumbria during the Second World War.

Much evidence has accumulated that childhood leukaemia (CL) is a rare response to a common, but unidentified, infection and in particular that situations involving the unusual mixing of urban and rural groups (approximating to, respectively, groups infected with, and susceptible to, the relevant microorganism) can produce localised epidemics with consequent increases of the infrequent leukaemic complication. During the Second World War, explosives production factories were built and operated at Drigg and Sellafield, and a shell filling factory at Bootle, in west Cumbria, England, requiring substantial numbers of construction workers to be brought into this remote and isolated area. Following the design of an earlier study of CL near large (post-war) rural construction sites, mortality from this disease was investigated with the help of the Office of National Statistics, in the area around these Cumbrian factories where local workers largely lived, during the construction period and with particular reference to the overlapping construction and operational phase when the mixing of local and migrant workers would have been greatest. An excess of leukaemia deaths at ages 1-14 was found during the construction period (observed 3; observed/expected (O/E) 2.2, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.6, 6.0), which was more marked and statistically significant during the overlap with operations (O 3; O/E 4.5, 95% CI: 1.1, 12.2), especially at ages 1-4 (O 2; O/E 7.1, CI: 1.2, 23.6). A previous investigation did not detect this excess because it considered only a small part of west Cumbria that omitted the communities where most of the workforce lived, having incorrectly attributed the post-war expansion of the village of Seascale (situated between Drigg and Sellafield) to the wartime ordnance factories. The present findings are consistent with the results of the earlier study of rural construction projects and with the general evidence that marked rural-urban population mixing increases the risk of CL.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

A case-control study of childhood leukaemia and paternal occupational contact level in rural Sweden.

In a national case-control study in Sweden, we investigated whether in rural areas (where susceptible individuals are more prevalent than in urban areas) leukaemia risk was higher among the young children of fathers with many work contacts, as the infective hypothesis has predicted. A total of 1935 cases diagnosed in 1958-1998 together with 7736 age-matched (within 1 year) population controls (of whom 970 and 3880 respectively were aged 0-4) were linked to paternal occupational details as recorded in the census closest to the year of birth. Applying the two classifications of occupational contact level used in a study of rural Scotland, the odds ratios for children aged 0-4 years in the highest contact category (which includes teachers) in the most rural Swedish counties were 3.47 (95% CI 1.54, 7.85) and 1.59 (1.07, 2.38) respectively, relative to the medium and low (reference) category; no such excess was found in urban or intermediate counties. There was also a significant positive trend at ages 0-4 in the rural counties across the three levels of increasing occupational contact (P for trend 0.02 and 0.03, respectively), but again not in the urban or intermediate counties. No such effect or trend was found at ages 5-14 in any of the three county groupings. The findings confirm those of a recent study in rural Scotland, and also suggest that unusual population mixing (as occurred in Scotland as a result of the North Sea oil industry) is not a necessary requirement for the effect, since comparable mixing has not been a feature of rural Sweden.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Immunosuppressive therapy and acquired immunological disorders.

Impairment of the immune system by drugs, such as azathioprine and cyclosporin, or by diseases, such as AIDS, represents the most firmly established cause of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Neither drugs nor diseases, however, can explain the increases in the incidence of NHL in the general population, for these include cohorts relatively unexposed to immunosuppressive drugs or to AIDS. Furthermore, no immunological disorder that is associated with an increased risk of NHL is known to have increased in incidence. Among alternative explanations is the possibility of increased exposure to a lymphomagenic agent in the environment that acts by nonimmunological means. Pesticides and herbicides may belong to this category, but they will not explain the substantial increases in NHL in urban populations. However, the evidence of an underlying viral aetiology for the lymphomas in several different forms of immune impairment may be relevant to the increases in NHL in the general population. Paralytic poliomyelitis and mumps represent examples of diseases that have changed their pattern of occurrence in this century, consequent on changes in social conditions. It is therefore not impossible that changes in hygiene and in population density have altered the average age of exposure to a virus, thereby increasing the likelihood of a lymphomagenic effect.

Humans↗
PubMed1988

Evidence for an infective cause of childhood leukaemia: comparison of a Scottish new town with nuclear reprocessing sites in Britain.

Increases of leukaemia in young people that cannot be explained in terms of radiation have been recorded near both of Britain's nuclear reprocessing plants at Dounreay and Sellafield. These were built in unusually isolated places where herd immunity to a postulated widespread virus infection (to which leukaemia is a rare response) would tend to be lower than average. The large influxes of people in the 1950s to those areas might have been conducive to epidemics. The hypothesis has been tested in Scotland in an area identified at the outset as the only other rural area that received a large influx at the same time, when it was much more cut off from the nearest conurbation than at present--the New Town of Glenrothes. A significant increase of leukaemia below age 25 was found (10 observed, expected 3.6), with a greater excess below age 5 (7 observed, expected 1.5).

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

Cancer and fluoride.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1977

Fluoridation of water and cancer mortality in the U.S.A.

Authoritative statements that fluoridation of public water supplies is not associated with any increase in cancer have been challenged on the basis of data which, it is claimed, show that cancer mortality in the United States rose more sharply in cities with fluoridated water than in those without. However, during the period of study (1950-70) the population structures of these cities changed substantially. When account is taken of age, sex, and ethnic group the ratio between observed cancer mortality and expected cancer mortality fell slightly in the cities with fluoridated water and did not change in the non-fluoridated cities.

Adolescent↗