Previous studies have reported inconsistent results on the effect of anthropometric and lifestyle factors on the risk of developing glioma or meningioma tumours. A prospective cohort of 1.3 million middle-aged women was used to examine these relationships. During 7.7 million women-years of follow-up, a total of 1563 women were diagnosed with a primary incident central nervous system tumour: 646 tumours were classified as glioma and 390 as meningioma. Our results show that height is related to the incidence of all central nervous system tumours with a risk of about 20% per 10 cm increase in height (relative risk ¼ 1.19, 95% CI ¼ 1.10 -1.30 per 10 cm increase in height, Po0.001): the risks did not differ significantly between specified glioma and meningioma. Body mass index (BMI) was also related to central nervous system tumour incidence, with a risk of about 20% per 10 kg m À2 increase in BMI (relative risk ¼ 1.17, 95% CI ¼ 1.03 -1.34 per 10 kg m À2 increase in BMI, P ¼ 0.02). Smoking status, alcohol intake, socioeconomic level, parity, age at first birth, and oral contraceptive use were not associated with the risk of glioma or meningioma tumours. In conclusion, for women in the United Kingdom, the incidence of glioma or meningioma tumours increases with increasing height and increasing BMI. British Journal of Cancer (2008) Keywords: body mass index; glioma; height; meningioma; women Primary brain and central nervous system cancers are relatively rare and represent approximately 2% of all cancers diagnosed in the United Kingdom. However, due to a poor prognosis, they are responsible for 7% of the years of life lost from cancer before the age of 70 years (Cancer Research UK, 2007). Very little is known about the aetiology of central nervous system tumours, but environmental factors are thought to play a role (McKinney, 2004;Connelly and Malkin, 2007).The two most common types of central nervous system tumour are glioma and meningioma (Claus et al, 2005). Gliomas arise from glial cells, are found predominantly in the brain and to a lesser extent in the spinal cord or other parts of the central nervous system, and represent more than 70% of all brain tumours (Ohgaki and Kleihues, 2005). Gliomas are typically histologically malignant, can be either slow or fast growing, and are more frequently diagnosed in men than in women. Meningiomas arise from the arachnoidal cells of the leptomeninges (the pia mater and arachnoid mater of the meninges) (Sanson and Cornu, 2000), are also more frequently found in the brain than elsewhere in the central nervous system, and represent more than 20% of all brain tumours (Longstreth et al, 1993). Meningiomas are typically benign (490%) and slow growing. The risk of meningioma increases with age (Sanson and Cornu, 2000), and they are more frequently diagnosed in women (Sanson and Cornu, 2000;Perry et al, 2007).There are few well-established risk factors for glioma and meningioma tumours among adults; while exposure to ionizing radiation and rare inherited genetic conditions such as n...

We report results on risk factors for invasive squamous cell and adenocarcinomas of the cervix in women aged 20 -44 years from the UK National Case -Control Study of Cervical Cancer, including 180 women with adenocarcinoma, 391 women with squamous cell carcinoma and 923 population controls. The risk of both squamous cell and adenocarcinoma was strongly related to the lifetime number of sexual partners, and, independently, to age at first intercourse. The risk of both types of cervical cancer increased with increasing duration of use of oral contraceptives, and this effect was most marked in current and recent users of oral contraceptives. The risk of squamous cell carcinoma was associated with high parity and the risk of both squamous cell and adenocarcinoma increased with early age at first birth. Long duration smoking (20 or more years) was associated with a two-fold increase in the risk of squamous cell carcinoma, but smoking was not associated with the risk of adenocarcinoma. Further studies are needed to confirm the suggestion from this and other studies of differences in risk related to smoking between squamous cell and adenocarcinomas of the cervix. Among cancers of the uterine cervix, adenocarcinomas are much less common than squamous cell carcinomas. As for squamous cell carcinoma, human papillomavirus (HPV) infection appears to be a major risk factor for adenocarcinoma of the cervix (Kjaer and Brinton, 1993;Walboomers et al, 1999;Santos et al, 2001;Altekruse et al, 2003), but evidence on other factors that may affect the risk of adenocarcinoma is limited and not entirely consistent (Parazzini and La Vecchia, 1990;Kjaer and Brinton, 1993;Ursin et al, 1994Ursin et al, , 1996Lacey et al, 1999Lacey et al, , 2000Lacey et al, , 2001Madeleine et al, 2001;Altekruse et al, 2003). The question of whether there are substantial differences in the risk factors for adenocarcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas remains unresolved. Few epidemiological studies have been designed specifically to provide a direct comparison between adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix, and most studies of cervical carcinoma have had too few cases of adenocarcinoma to allow full evaluation of the possible risk factors. We present here results from the UK National Case -Control Study of Cervical Cancer, a case -control study of risk factors for invasive cervical cancer in women under 45 years old at diagnosis, with 180 cases of adenocarcinoma (including adenosquamous carcinoma), 391 cases of squamous cell carcinoma and 923 population controls. Information was available for all study subjects on sexual and reproductive factors, cervical screening, body weight, smoking and the use of barrier and hormonal contraceptives. Additional information was collected on HPV serology for a subgroup of subjects, and for this subgroup results have previously been published on the relationship between HPV positivity and risk of cervical cancer (Jha et al, 1993), and on oral contraceptive use as a risk factor for cervical cancer in relati...

While most cancers of the uterine cervix are squamous cell carcinomas, the relative and absolute incidence of adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix has risen in recent years. It is not clear to what extent risk factors identified for squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix are shared by cervical adenocarcinomas. We used data from six case -control studies to compare directly risk factors for cervical adenocarcinoma (910 cases) and squamous cell carcinoma (5649 cases) in a published data meta-analysis. The summary odds ratios and tests for differences between these summaries for the two histological types were estimated using empirically weighted least squares. A higher lifetime number of sexual partners, earlier age at first intercourse, higher parity and long duration of oral contraceptive use were risk factors for both histological types. Current smoking was associated with a significantly increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma, with a summary odds ratio of 1.47 (95% confidence interval: 1.15 -1.88), but not of adenocarcinoma (summary odds ratio ¼ 0.82 (0.60 -1.11); test for heterogeneity between squamous cell and adenocarcinoma for current smoking:The results of this meta-analysis of published data suggest that squamous cell and adenocarcinomas of the uterine cervix, while sharing many risk factors, may differ in relation to smoking. Further evidence is needed to confirm this in view of the limited data available. (2004) Most cancers of the uterine cervix are squamous cell carcinomas, but the relative and absolute incidence of adenocarcinoma has risen in recent years and adenocarcinomas now account for about 20% of incident invasive cervical cancers in screened populations worldwide (Sasieni and Adams, 2001). It remains unclear to what extent risk factors identified for squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix are shared by cervical adenocarcinomas (Parazzini and La Vecchia, 1990;Kjaer and Brinton, 1993;Altekruse et al, 2003;Green et al, 2003). While infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) appears to be the most important cause of both types of cervical cancer (Walboomers et al, 1999;Clifford et al, 2003), some controlled studies have found differences between adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma in the importance of other factors such as smoking (Lacey et al, 2001;Green et al, 2003) and reproductive factors (Altekruse et al, 2003). Individual studies have generally been limited by small numbers of adenocarcinoma cases and in some instances by lack of adjustment for confounding factors. In the 10 years since this subject was last reviewed (Parazzini and La Vecchia, 1990;Kjaer and Brinton, 1993), a number of new studies have been published. In this meta-analysis of published data, we have combined results from those controlled studies that provided a direct comparison between risk factors for squamous cell and adenocarcinoma, to assess the current evidence. British Journal of Cancer MATERIALS AND METHODSStudies were identified through searches of MEDLINE (1966 -June 2003, using combinations of the se...

The results of these studies are inconsistent and do not provide convincing evidence for or against an association between Coxsackie B virus infection and Type 1 diabetes mellitus. Better designed studies using effective assays are needed to resolve this important issue.