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Dietary intake of carotenoids and retinol and endometrial cancer risk in an Italian case–control study

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Abstract

Objectives

To provide information on the relation between intake of carotenoids and retinol and endometrial cancer, since available data are inconsistent. Further, carotenoids other than beta-carotene have been rarely investigated.

Methods

We conducted a multi-centric case–control study in various areas of Italy between 1992 and 2006 on 454 women with incident, histologically confirmed endometrial cancer and 908 controls admitted to the same network of hospitals of cases for acute, non-neoplastic conditions. Intake of carotenoids and retinol was computed from a validated and reproducible food frequency questionnaire. We adjusted for selected covariates, including energy intake, and calculated multivariate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) using conditional logistic regression.

Results

Comparing the highest to the lowest quartile of intake, the ORs of endometrial cancer were 0.69 (95% CI, 0.48–0.99) for beta-carotene, 0.65 (95% CI, 0.45–0.94) for beta-cryptoxanthin, and 0.59 (95% CI, 0.41–0.85) for lutein plus zeaxanthin intake. No association emerged with retinol (OR = 1.31, 95% CI, 0.94–1.84), alpha-carotene (OR = 0.94, 95% CI, 0.66–1.34), and lycopene (OR = 0.95, 95% CI, 0.68–1.34).

Conclusions

Our results support a favorable role of selected dietary carotenoids on endometrial cancer risk.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ms I. Garimoldi for editorial assistance.

Financial support

This work was conducted with contribution from the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC), Italian League Against Cancer and Italian Ministry of Research (PRIN 2005). The work in this paper was undertaken while CLV was a Senior Fellow at the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”, Via Giuseppe La Masa 19, 20156, Milan, Italy

    Claudio Pelucchi, Eva Negri & Carlo La Vecchia

  2. Unità di Epidemiologia e Biostatistica, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, Aviano (PN), Italy

    Luigino Dal Maso & Renato Talamini

  3. Unità di Epidemiologia, Istituto Nazionale Tumori “Fondazione Giovanni Pascale”, Naples, Italy

    Maurizio Montella & Aldo Giudice

  4. Istituto di Igiene ed Epidemiologia, DPMSC, Università degli Studi di Udine, Udine, Italy

    Maria Parpinel

  5. International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France

    Silvia Franceschi

  6. Istituto di Statistica Medica e Biometria “G. A. Maccacaro”, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Carlo La Vecchia

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  1. Claudio Pelucchi
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  2. Luigino Dal Maso
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  9. Carlo La Vecchia
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Correspondence to Claudio Pelucchi.

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Pelucchi, C., Dal Maso, L., Montella, M. et al. Dietary intake of carotenoids and retinol and endometrial cancer risk in an Italian case–control study. Cancer Causes Control 19, 1209–1215 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-008-9190-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-008-9190-1

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