PASSIVE AND ACTIVE SMOKING AND ADULT GLIOMA IN CANADA

Le résumé fourni par la source

The etiology of brain tumours is poorly understood, age of onset is relatively young and the prognosis is extremely grim for those diagnosed with brain cancer. The three published studies examining passive smoking and adult brain cancer, a cohort study in Japan and case-controls studies in North Carolina and Australia have each suggested the possibility of increased brain cancer risk associated with exposure to passive smoking. We conducted a case-control study to investigate the relationship between passive smoking and adult brain cancer. The analysis included 308 male and 199 female patients with newly diagnosed primary glioma and 1,178 frequency-matched population control subjects who provided a lifetime residential and occupational passive smoking history. Regular passive smoke exposure at home or at work was associated with increased risk of glioma in never-smoking women (risk factor adjusted odds ratio 2.39 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1–5.2) but not among never-smoking men (OR 1.10 (95% CI 0.6–2.0). The adjusted OR for those who had actively smoked compared with those who were never actively or passively exposed was 1.82 (95% CI 0.8–3.9) for women and 0.80 for men (95% CI 0.5–1.5). Among never smoking women there was a dose-response relationship with total years of residential and occupational passive exposure (two-sided test for linear trend P = .01). Adjusted OR's for 1–23, 24–45 and >=46 years of passive exposure were 1.85 (95% CI 0.8–4.4), 2.35 (95% CI 1.0–5.7) and 3.27 (95% CI 1.2–8.8). Dose-response relationships were not evident for active smoking among women. Passive and active smoking may be associated with increased glioma risk in women. Additional etiologic studies with lifetime measures of passive smoking exposure need to be undertaken to clarify the risk.

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