High Paternal Age May be Associated with Sporadic Bilateral Retinoblastoma

: Ophthalmic Epidemiol. 2000 Dec;7(4):285-91. Links
Parental age in Indian patients with sporadic hereditary retinoblastoma.Sivakumaran TA, Ghose S, Kumar H, A S, Kucheria K.
Division of Genetics, Department of Anatomy, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Science, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.

There is a consistent correlation between sporadic hereditary retinoblastoma and parental age. It has been proven beyond doubt that the birth rank is correlated with parental age. In the present study, a test for the effect of birth rank was performed in order to assess the risk of developing retinoblastoma with increased parental age. The study of the effect of birth rank showed a significant association between sporadic retinoblastoma (bilateral and unilateral) and late para, indicating that fresh germline mutations must have taken place in some of the sporadic cases. An investigation of the effect of birth rank on familial cases, obtained from published papers and our own series, showed that familial retinoblastoma is significantly associated with early para, suggesting early parental age. Further analysis of the mean paternal and maternal ages of sporadic cases (bilateral and unilateral) showed that the mean paternal age of sporadic bilateral (sporadic hereditary) cases was higher than that of sporadic unilateral cases (p<0.05). No such correlation was seen with mean maternal age. Thus, the present study shows that a high paternal age may be associated with sporadic bilateral (sporadic hereditary) retinoblastoma.

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1: Hum Genet. 1996 Jul;98(1):109-12. Links
High parental age is associated with sporadic hereditary retinoblastoma: the Dutch retinoblastoma register 1862-1994.Moll AC, Imhof SM, Kuik DJ, Bouter LM, Den Otter W, Bezemer PD, Koten JW, Tan KE.
Department of Ophthalmology, Free University Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
We wished to determine the influence of parental age at the birth of a retinoblastoma patient on the risk of sporadic hereditary retinoblastoma. The parental age at birth of 941 patients of the Dutch retinoblastoma register (1862-1994) was identified and compared between sporadic hereditary and nonhereditary patients. In a subcohort (1936-1994), a comparison was made with parental age at birth in the general population, as obtained from the Central Bureau of Statistics. Missing birth dates of the parents of retinoblastoma patients were traced with the help of the municipal registries and the Central Bureau of Genealogy. The mean paternal age was 10.7 months higher and the mean maternal age was 11.0 months higher in the sporadic hereditary retinoblastoma patients than in parents of nonhereditary patients. In the subcohort, the mean paternal and maternal ages of sporadic hereditary patients were also higher (12.4 and 11.5 months, respectively) than those of the general population. All differences were statistically significant. This study shows that a high parental age is associated with an enhanced risk of sporadic hereditary retinoblastoma.

PMID: 8682494 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]