Impact of Consanguinity, Environment, Socio-Economic and Other Risk Factors on Epidemiology of Leukemia

The study was aimed to investigate the occurrence and prevalence of leukemia in a hospital population and the impact of consanguinity, surname, birth order, blood group, family history, environment, socioeconomic and smoking characteristics on the occurrence of leukemia. A standard questionnaire was used to collect information including different parameters like age, sex, birth order, exact diagnosis, genetic relationships, education, socioeconomic status, smoking, physical activities, allied diseases, locality and family history of patients. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) was most commonly occurring malignancy 42.28% followed by Acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) 26.18%, Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) 16.11% and Chronic lymphoid leukemia (CLL) 15.43%. There was a significant (P< 0.05) gender depicted difference in prevalence of leukemia. The patients with blood group O+ (29.53%) were more affected with Leukemia. 4th Birth order (16.78%) showed the highest affliction of all leukemia conditions. Rural (62.42%) population was significantly influenced than urban (37.58%) population (P<0.05). Patients with low level of education were more affected (P< 0.01) with leukemia than highly educated patients. In this study outcomes of first cousin marriages resulted in higher leukemia affliction than outcomes of unrelated couples. The inbreeding coefficient was also observed high (F=0.0267), which indicates genetic basis of leukemia. Highest percentage of patients among various surnames was observed in Arian (29.53%) and lowest in Mughal (1.35%). Smoking was important risk factor for occurrence of leukemia. It was found that 59.73% patients belonged to the lower class followed by middle class (35.57%) and 4.70% in upper class. The study of the risk factors leading to leukemia is pertinent and would help to identify strategies to develop protective policies and interventions.