Babies born with a larger head may have an increased risk of childhood brain cancer, research suggests. Head circumference at birth reflects brain size, and researchers suspected that in some cases this might be a sign of abnormal growth patterns. A Norwegian Institute of Public Health team tested their hypothesis by examining the health records of over a million young people. They found the larger the head at birth, the greater the risk. For every centimetre increase in head circumference at birth, the relative risk of having a tumour rose by 27%. However, the overall risk was still small. Out of 1,010,366 children in the study just 453 were diagnosed with brain cancer. In the UK, about 300 children are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year. Currently, around 30% of affected children die of the disease. The researchers said their work suggested that brain cancers might begin to develop before birth.
