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History of allergic disease and epilepsy and risk of glioma and meningioma (INTERPHONE study group, Germany)

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Abstract

The aim of the present analysis was to examine the association of a medical history of asthma, hay fever, eczema, or epilepsy with the risk of glioma and meningioma. Data of a German population-based case–control study included 381 meningioma cases, 366 glioma cases, and 1,494 controls. Participants’ histories of asthma, hay fever, eczema, and epilepsy and the respective ages at onset were asked during a personal interview. A small inverse association between allergic condition and both glioma (odds ratio: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.70–1.22) and meningioma (odd ratio: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.66–1.14) was found. For glioma, this inverse association was more pronounced in persons reporting to have asthma compared to other allergic conditions. The positive association between epilepsy and particularly glioma suggests that epilepsy is an early symptom of the disease. As the association was seen also for epilepsies occurring more than a decade before the diagnosis of glioma, this might indicate either an aetiological role of epilepsy, or a relatively long preclinical phase. In conclusion our study confirms previous findings of case control studies but not those from cohort studies. However, possible selection bias in case control studies might not explain the different results in its entirety.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge funding from: the European Fifth Framework Program, “Quality of Life and Management of living Resources” (contract QLK4-CT-19999-01563); the “Deutsches Mobilfunkforschungsprogramm” of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nuclear Safety, and Nature Protection; the Ministry for the Environment and Traffic of the state of Baden-Württemberg; the Ministry for the Environment of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia; the MAIFOR Program of the University of Mainz; and the International Union against Cancer (UICC). The UICC received funds for this purpose from the Mobile Manufacturers’ Forum and GSM Association. Provision of funds to the Interphone study investigators via the UICC was governed by agreements that guaranteed Interphone’s complete scientific independence. These agreements are publicly available at http://www.iarc.fr/ENG/Units/RCAd.html [07-01-05]. We would like to thank Marianne Brömmel, Stephanie Estel, Iris Hettinger, Melanie Hetzer, Katharina Kunna-Grass, and Anna Wilms for organizing the field phase and all our interviewers for their skilful work. We thank the clinical INTERPHONE team for their support and the collaboration: Bielefeld: Prof Falk Oppel (Neurosurgical clinic), Dr Uwe Dietrich (Neuroradiology), Dr Volkmar Hans (Neuropathology), Heidelberg: Prof Andreas Unterberg, Prof Stefan Kunze, Dr Karsten Geletneky (Neurosurgical clinic), Prof Marika Kiessling (Neuropathology), Mannheim: Prof Peter Schmiedek, Dr Jochen Tüttenberg (Neurosurgical clinic), Prof Uwe Bleyl (Neuropathology), Mainz: Prof Axel Perneczky, Prof Nico Hopf, Dr Dorothee Koch (Neurosurgical clinic), Prof Wolf Mann, Prof Nickalaos Marangos (ENT clinic), Dr Wibke Müller-Forell (Neuroradiology), Prof Hans Hilmar Göbel (Neuropathology). We also thank the coordination team at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon for their support.

Conflict of interest statement

All authors disclaim any financial and personal relationship with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence or bias our work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and International Public Health, School of Public Health, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany

    Gabriele Berg-Beckhoff

  2. Institute of Medical Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, University Medical Centre, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Joachim Schüz, Maria Blettner & Eva Münster

  3. Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Joachim Schüz

  4. Institute of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Eva Münster

  5. Unit of Environmental Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Klaus Schlaefer, Jürgen Wahrendorf & Brigitte Schlehofer

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  1. Gabriele Berg-Beckhoff
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  3. Maria Blettner
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  7. Brigitte Schlehofer
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Correspondence to Brigitte Schlehofer.

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Berg-Beckhoff, G., Schüz, J., Blettner, M. et al. History of allergic disease and epilepsy and risk of glioma and meningioma (INTERPHONE study group, Germany). Eur J Epidemiol 24, 433–440 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-009-9355-6

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