Evaluating cancer epidemiologic risk factors using multiple primary malignancies.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Several authors have proposed the use of patients with double primary malignancies affecting the same or contralateral organ as a genetically enriched resource of cases for epidemiologic case-control studies in cancer. Such an approach is based on the assumption that the factors that increase the risk of a second primary are the same ones which influence the risk of a first primary. The advantages for statistical power are premised on the assumption that relative risks in survivors of a first primary cancer are similar to relative risks in the unaffected population. We explore these assumptions theoretically and empirically using published data from breast cancer studies involving bilateral breast cancer.

Methods

We conducted a literature review to identify case-c

SUBMITTER: Kuligina E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3142453 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature