Studies of lymphomas

Duration

2004-

Coordinator

Silvia de Sanjosé (ICO)

The incidence and mortality of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) have been increasing worldwide during the last 20 years. Such trends cannot be solely explained by changes in diagnostic procedures and the reasons for this rising incidence are largely unknown. The etiology of NHL is still poorly understood. Studies focusing on occupational and environmental risk factors have generated useful etiological hypotheses including exposure to pesticides, solvents, ultraviolet radiation, and contact with animals and animal products. In addition, the growing evidence concerning the biological heterogeneity of NHL neoplasms which is likely to reflect etiological heterogeneity indicates the need for subtype-specific investigations.

CREAL participates in a European and an International study that pools data from case control studies and that includes around 9500 lymphoma cases and 11000 controls. These projects are funded by the EU and by the US NIH. We had previously shown with data from the Spanish lymphoma study that is coordinated by Silvia de Sanjose (ICO), that occupational exposure to high molecular weight agents that are associated with asthma and that act predominantly through an immunoglobulin E (IgE)–dependent hypersensitivity mechanism, is associated with lower risk of B-cell lymphomas (Kogevinas et al 2004). We have partially confirmed this finding with a new analysis of a large Italian case-control study (Mirabelli et al, 2009). Within the international consortium we are responsible for analysing the occupational exposure data and testing the hypothesis that spceific immunoligically acting exposures are associated with a decreased risk of lymphoma.