Skip to main content

Early life infections: pathways to prevent adult cancers?

Early life infections: pathways to prevent adult cancers?

This INSPIRE project investigated whether severe acute infections early in life are linked to risk of cancer in early adulthood.

Researcher: Julie Aarestrup
Grant type: INSPIRE Research Challenge
Countries: Denmark
Cancer types: General
Exposures: Immune function
Status: Completed
Area: Cancer prevention

With the support from World Cancer Research Fund/Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds, I am looking forward to investigating the overlooked links between early life infections and adult cancer risk using unique Danish data resources. This novel research project will yield insights into whether severe acute infections early in life may protect against development of cancer in adulthood. – Dr Julie Aarestrup

INSPIRE grant title

Early life infections: pathways to prevent adulthood cancers?

> More about our INSPIRE Research Challenge

Results

The researchers found that people who were hospitalized with an acute infection during the first 2 years of life had a lower risk of being diagnosed with early-onset cancer later in life than people who were not hospitalized. The risk of cancer did not change depending on whether a person was hospitalised one or more times with an infection early in life.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that infections in the first two years of life may have a role in reducing the risk of cancer. However, more studies are needed to investigate these associations in other settings as well as examinations of specific infection types and specific cancer forms.

Impact

These findings raise the intriguing possibility that early life infections, which are common and a leading cause of hospitalisation, may play a role in cancer aetiology.

Grant publication

Pedersen, Dorthe C., et al. “Associations between Hospitalised Infections in the First 24 Months of Life and Risk of Cancer in Early-Mid Adulthood.” Cancer Epidemiology, vol. 97, 2025.