Winter Birth in Association with a Risk of Brain Tumor among a Finnish Patient Population

• Published in: Neuroepidemiology
• Main Authors: Mainio, Arja, Hakko, Helinä, Koivukangas, John, Niemelä, Asko, Räsänen, Pirkko
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: S. Karger AG 2006
• Subjects: Northern Finland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000094578; https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/94578

The aim of this study was to analyze whether winter birth is related to risk of brain tumor in a clinical sample of patients from northern Finland. The study group comprised 101 patients suffering from a primary brain tumor. When comparing births in winter to births in other seasons, a 1.39-fold (95% CI 1.01–1.77) excess of winter births among patients was observed compared to respective births in the general population (p = 0.026). Especially patients with pituitary adenomas exhibited a 2.5-fold (95% CI 1.5–4.4) excess of winter births. The authors conclude that the season-of-birth effect in brain tumor patients should not be neglected when the actual and important tumorigenesis is investigated.