Asbestos Cancer Update 2008

Department of Epidemiology, Italian National Cancer Institute “Regina Elena”, Via E. Chianesi 53, 00144 Rome, Italy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate sunburn, sun sensitivity factors and sun protection behavior in school-age children. METHODS: 2002 to 2004 survey of 2942 children in primary schools of Valencia, Spain, and their parents, using a self-administered questionnaire filled by the children with the help of their parents. RESULTS: Having a fair skin (OR: 2.05; 95% CI: 1.38-3.04), light coloured eyes (OR: 1.38; 95% CI: 1.12-1.68), freckles (OR: 1.32; 95% CI:1.12-1.56), and older age (OR: 2.34; 95% CI:1.96-2.80) were associated with occurrence of sunburns. Hair color, gender, use of sunscreens, wearing T-shirts and sunglasses were not. Wearing hats (OR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.54-0.75) was inversely associated. Parents were significantly more inclined to protect younger and fair-skinned children with sunscreen and T-shirts. CONCLUSIONS: As expected, phenotype is related to sunburns and appears to influence parent’s sun protection behaviours.

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Service de Neurologie, CHU Pasteur, 06002 Nice, France, lebrun.c@chu-nice.fr.

BACKGROUND: Prior to the era of immunomodulating or immunosuppressive (IS) treatments Multiple Sclerosis (MS) was linked to reduced rates of cancer.Method A descriptive study of MS patients with a documented oncological event was performed. From 1 January 1995 to 30 June 2006, we collected and studied the profile of 7418 MS patients gathered from nine French MS centers. We evaluated the incidence of cancer in a Cancer Risk In MS Cohort. RESULTS: Thirty one patients (1.75%) with confirmed MS had a history of cancer: mean age at MS diagnosis of 37.9 years and a mean age at cancer diagnosis of 46.4 years. The most frequent cancers were breast (34.5%), gynecological (12.5%), skin (10.2%), acute leukemia and lymphoma (5.9%), digestive (8.8%), kidney and bladder (5.1%), lung (3.4%) and central nervous system (3%). Calculated standardized incidence rates were 0.29 (0.17-0.45) for men and 0.53 (0.42-0.66) for women. The incidence of cancer in this MS population was lower than that expected for the general population. Matched to age, gender and histology, cancers in MS were associated with a young age and exposure to IS treatments. When considering all patients, treated patients had a 3-fold higher risk of developing cancer, if they had a history of IS (P = 0.0035). For treated patients, the cancer sites were more likely the breast, the urinary tract, the digestive system and the skin. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that MS patients do not have an increased risk of cancer. Rather for several types of cancer a significantly reduced risk was observed, except for breast cancer in women treated with IS. The relative increased risk of breast cancer in MS women under IS treatment warrants further attention. Multiple Sclerosis 2008; 14: 399-405. http://msj.sagepub.com.

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