PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - A Borkhardt AU - M Wilda AU - U Fuchs AU - L Gortner AU - I Reiss TI - Congenital leukaemia after heavy abuse of permethrin during pregnancy AID - 10.1136/fn.88.5.F436 DP - 2003 Sep 01 TA - Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition PG - F436--F437 VI - 88 IP - 5 4099 - http://fn.bmj.com/content/88/5/F436.short 4100 - http://fn.bmj.com/content/88/5/F436.full SO - Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed2003 Sep 01; 88 AB - A single case is described of congenital leukaemia with 11q23/MLL rearrangement in a preterm female newborn. Because of arachnophobia, the mother had heavily abused aerosolised permethrin, a widely used household insecticide. Permethrin is considered comparatively safe, but, in view of the mother’s history, its potential to induce cleavage of the MLL gene in cell culture was tested. Incubation of the BV173 cell line with 50 μM permethrin readily induced MLL cleavage.