Genetic modifiers of radon-induced lung cancer risk: a genome-wide interaction study in former uranium miners.

Purpose: Radon is a risk factor for lung cancer and uranium miners are more exposed than the general population. A genome-wide interaction analysis was carried out to identify genomic loci, genes or gene sets that modify the susceptibility to lung cancer given occupational exposure to the radioactive gas radon.

Methods: Samples from 28 studies provided by the International Lung Cancer Consortium were pooled with samples of former uranium miners collected by the German Federal Office of Radiation Protection.

Longitudinal trends in thyroid function in relation to iodine intake: ongoing changes of thyroid function despite adequate current iodine status.

Objective: Several cross-sectional studies on populations with iodine deficiency showed that TSH-levels are negatively associated with age, while in populations with high iodine intake TSH is positively associated with age. The question is whether such an age-thyroid function relation is an ongoing process apparent also in longitudinal studies and whether it reflects an actual iodine deficiency or an iodine insufficiency in the past.

Methods: In an area with a borderline iodine status in the past, we studied 980 participants of the Nijmegen Biomedical Study.

Markedly increased incidence and improved survival of testicular cancer in the Netherlands.

Background: Worldwide marked changes have been observed in the incidence and survival of testicular cancer (TC) during the last decades. We conducted a study on trends in TC incidence, treatment, survival, and mortality in the Netherlands during the period 1970-2009 with specific focus on trends according to age, histology and stage of disease.

Methods: Data from the Eindhoven cancer registry, the Netherlands cancer registry and Statistics Netherlands was used.

[Vaginal and cervical cancer due to diethylstilbestrol (DES); end epidemic].

Objective: To determine the current situation regarding the epidemic of clear cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina and the uterine cervix (CCAC) in relation to the exposure in utero to diethylstilbestrol (DES).

Design: Descriptive.

Methods: Patients with CCAC of the uterine cervix or vagina born after 1946 and diagnosed in the period 1969-2005, were identified through the Nationwide network and registry of histo- and cytopathology in the Netherlands and from 2003 onwards through the Netherlands Cancer Registry.

Testicular cancer: marked birth cohort effects on incidence and a decline in mortality in southern Netherlands since 1970.

The aim of our study was to interpret the changing incidence, and to describe the mortality of patients with testicular cancer in the south of the Netherlands between 1970 and 2004. On the basis of data from the Eindhoven Cancer Registry and Statistics Netherlands, 5-year moving average standardised incidence and mortality rates were calculated. An age-period-cohort (APC) Poisson regression analysis was performed to disentangle time and birth cohort effects on incidence.