%0 Journal Article %T Paternal age increases the risk for autism in an Iranian population sample %A Roksana Sasanfar %A Stephen A Haddad %A Ala Tolouei %A Majid Ghadami %A Dongmei Yu %A Susan L Santangelo %J Molecular Autism %D 2010 %I BioMed Central %R 10.1186/2040-2392-1-2 %X In the present study, we investigated the association of autism with parental age in 179 autism cases and 1611 matched cohort children from Iran. Each case was matched with nine cohort controls on parental education, sex, order of birth, consanguineous marriage, urbanism and province of residence. The Cox regression model was used to carry out conditional logistic regression on the matched data.There was a significant association between higher paternal age, but not maternal age, and an increasing risk of autism. An analysis of the combined effect of parental age and education also revealed that parents with higher education had an increased risk of having autistic children, with a dose-response effect of parental age.This study, which is the first epidemiological study of autism in Iran, provides evidence of the association of paternal age and risk of autism.Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a group of heterogeneous and fairly devastating neurodevelopmental disorders that include autism, Rett and Asperger syndromes and pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). Although several recent retrospective studies of toddlers indicated the presence of abnormalities in social, communication and play behaviour as early as 14 months of age [1-6], autism often remains undiagnosed until the age of 3 years or later. Children with autism have deficits in reciprocal social interaction and communication and display repetitive and stereotyped behaviours [7]. The prevalence of autism, which has seemingly increased dramatically during the last decade [8] is estimated at one or two per 1000 for autistic disorder [9,10] and five or six per 1000 for ASD [11], although the most recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control in the USA indicate that as many as 1/150 8-year-olds in the USA may be affected [12].The causes of autism are still unclear, although results from twin and family studies provide evidence for a strong genetic contribution, with the pr %U http://www.molecularautism.com/content/1/1/2