Biologic markers of sun exposure and melanoma risk in women: pooled case-control analysis.

ABSTRACT: A model has been proposed whereby melanomas arise through two distinct pathways dependent on the relative influence of host susceptibility and sun exposure. Such pathways may explain site-specific patterns of melanoma occurrence. To explore this model, we investigated the relationship between melanoma risk and general markers of acute (recalled sunburns) and chronic (prevalent solar keratoses) sun exposure, stratified by anatomic site and host phenotype. Our working hypothesis was that head and neck melanomas have stronger associations with solar keratoses and weaker associations with sunburn than trunk melanomas. We conducted a collaborative analysis using original data from women subjects of 11 case-control studies of melanoma (2,575 cases, 3,241 controls). We adjusted for potential conf

SUBMITTER: Olsen CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3035752 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature