¹Fondazione Policlinico IRCCS-Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology Unit, via Pace 9, Milano 20122, Italy

Correspondence: Dr E Taioli, E-mail: epidemiologia@policlinico.mi.it

Received 7 June 2005; Revised 19 August 2005; Accepted 6 September 2005; Published online 18 October 2005.

Abstract

A meta-analysis was performed on 11 cohort studies of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) and subsequent childhood cancer, published up to February 2005, which reported comparable, nonoverlapping data, and then restricted to eight studies which presented a similar research design. The overall Standardised Incidence Ratio was 1.33 (95% CI 0.62–2.85), and 0.77 (95% CI 0.41–1.42) when the analysis was restricted to eight studies. No evidence of publication bias was observed for the overall analysis. The data are consistent with a lack of increase in risk of childhood cancer, though the amount of data on ART and cancer is still limited; larger multicentric studies as well as a pooled analysis on the available data are warranted.