French cohort of the uranium processing workers: mortality pattern after 30-year follow-up

Objective  

To investigate mortality among nuclear workers with potential internal exposure to uranium.     

Allergy and brain tumors in the INTERPHONE study: pooled results from Australia, Canada, France, Israel, and New Zealand

Purpose

A history of allergy has been inversely associated with several types of cancer although the evidence is not entirely consistent. We examined the association between allergy history and risk of glioma, meningioma, acoustic neuroma, and parotid gland tumors using data on a large number of cases and controls from five INTERPHONE study countries (Australia, Canada, France, Israel, New Zealand), to better understand potential sources of bias in brain tumor case–control studies and to examine associations between allergy and tumor sites where few studies exist.

Methods

A total of 793 glioma, 832 meningioma, 394 acoustic neuroma, and 84 parotid gland tumor cases were analyzed with 2,520 controls recruited during 2000–2004. Conditional logistic regression models were used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) for associations between self-reported allergy and tumor risk.

Results

A significant inverse association was observed between a history of any allergy and glioma (OR = 0.73, 95 % CI 0.60–0.88), meningioma (OR = 0.77, 95 % CI 0.63–0.93), and acoustic neuroma (OR = 0.64, 95 % CI 0.49–0.83). Inverse associations were also observed with specific allergic conditions. However, inverse associations with asthma and hay fever strengthened with increasing age of allergy onset and weakened with longer time since onset. No overall association was observed for parotid gland tumors (OR = 1.21, 95 % CI 0.73–2.02).

Conclusions

While allergy history might influence glioma, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma risk, the observed associations could be due to information or selection bias or reverse causality.     

The INTERPHONE study: design, epidemiological methods, and description of the study population

The very rapid worldwide increase in mobile phone use in the last decade has generated considerable interest in the possible health effects of exposure to radio frequency (RF) fields. A multinational case–control study, INTERPHONE, was set-up to investigate whether mobile phone use increases the risk of cancer and, more specifically, whether the RF fields emitted by mobile phones are carcinogenic. The study focused on tumours arising in the tissues most exposed to RF fields from mobile phones: glioma, meningioma, acoustic neurinoma and parotid gland tumours. In addition to a detailed history of mobile phone use, information was collected on a number of known and potential risk factors for these tumours. The study was conducted in 13 countries. Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the UK using a common core protocol. This paper describes the study design and methods and the main characteristics of the study population. INTERPHONE is the largest case–control study to date investigating risks related to mobile phone use and to other potential risk factors for the tumours of interest and includes 2,765 glioma, 2,425 meningioma, 1,121 acoustic neurinoma, 109 malignant parotid gland tumour cases and 7,658 controls. Particular attention was paid to estimating the amount and direction of potential recall and participation biases and their impact on the study results. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Baruch Modan is deceased.     

Cytochrome P-450 Isozyme Pattern Is Related to Individual Susceptibility to Diethylnitrosamine-induced Liver Cancer in Rats

Differences in susceptibility to chemical carcinogenesis between rodent strains and species have been linked to variations in genetically-determined mixed function oxidase activities. In order to verify whether such variations also determine the susceptibility of individual animals of the same strain to a chemical carcinogen, outbred male Wistar rats were administered diethylnitrosamine (DEN) (1, 2, or 3 nig/kg) five times a week for 20 weeks. The relationship was examined between the outcome (i.e. presence or absence of liver tumors, and latency period) and the hepatic activities of mixed function oxidases and conjugating enzymes, as well as of O⁶-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase, measured before the carcinogen treatment. In addition, the metabolic profiles of two model drugs, antipyrine and disopyramide, in the urine were analyzed and correlated with the carcinogen susceptibility. The length of the latency period of hepatocellular tumors in individual rats was negatively related to the activities of hepatic dimethylnitrosamine N -demethylase, aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase and epoxide hydrolase and positively related to the amount of microsomal protein. Consistent relationships between the other 10 measured parameters and the susceptibility to DEN-induced carcinogenesis were not detected. Long-term treatment with DEN slightly decreased the proportion of metabolism of antipyrine into norantipyrine, and increased the share of 4-hydroxyantipyrine; a decrease in the metabolism of disopyramide to N-deisopropyldisopyramide was also detected. It is concluded that the pattern of cytochrome P-450 isoenzymes is related to differences in individual susceptibility to nitrosamineinduced carcinogenesis. The relationship was most marked at low dose levels, which are the levels at which nitrosamine exposures of humans are known to occur.