The search for risk factors for childhood cancers is complex. Once the diagnosis has been made, it is difficult to pinpoint the factors that may have played a part in inducing cancer at a very early stage of fetal life or infancy. While we are gradually gaining a better understanding of the genetic conditions and variants that influence cancer risk, it is much more difficult to retrospectively identify risk factors linked to lifestyle, environment or diet, since they leave no known, objectible trace at the time of diagnosis. The rarity and diversity of cancers add to the complexity of this research.
For this reason, the team uses several complementary approaches, with studies based on interviews with mothers and blood or saliva samples (ESCALE, ESTELLE, MOBI-KIDS studies), studies based solely on knowledge of the municipalities of residence (ecological studies) or on the geolocation of the addresses of patients and controls (GEOCAP, GEOCAP-BIRTH).
The team also works in international consortiums (CLIC, RADONORM) and contributes to the multidisciplinary consortium PEDIAC.
Research
The main aim of the GEOCAP program, based on the French National Childhood Cancer Registry, is to study the influence of environmental exposures on the risk of childhood cancer. This work is based on the residential address of cases at
The objective of these two studies was: to study the influence, on the risk of cancer in children, of the course of pregnancy, characteristics of the child at birth, the child’s environment in utero or during childhood, and their lifestyle.
Objective: To study the risk of cancer in children following the use of Assisted Reproductive Technology in France. Methods The study is conducted at the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM), using data from
The international study MOBI-KIDS aims to evaluate the potential risk of brain tumors in children and adolescents related to exposure to electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones and other sources of exposure in their environment. Methods Mobi-Kids is an international
Consortium
A research program to understand pediatric cancers Since 2019, the National Cancer Institute coordinates the work of a “Task Force”, including groups of associations Growing up without cancer, Climbing and The Unapeclewhich led to the launch of a call for
The Childhood Cancer & Leukemia International Consortium (clic.ngo) was established in 2007, initially to bring together studies on the etiology of childhood leukemias. Founded by teams from Berkeley, Montreal, Perth, and our team, CLIC now brings together 39 researchers from
BENCHISTA (Benchmarking International Survival by Toronto stage) The overall survival rates for childhood cancer, based on population, vary across geographical regions in Europe and beyond; this variation could be explained at least in part by differences in tumor stage at