A15
Lifestyle factors and primary glioma and meningioma tumours in the Million Women Study cohort
Victoria Benson
Cancer Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Background
Previous studies have reported inconsistent results on the effect of anthropometric and lifestyle factors on the risk of developing central nervous system tumours.
Method
A prospective cohort of 1.3 million middle-aged women was used to examine these relationships. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards models were used for the analysis.
Results
During 7.7 million women-years of follow-up, a total of 1,563 women were diagnosed with a primary incident central nervous system tumour: 646 tumours were classified as glioma and 390 as meningioma. Our results show that height is related to the incidence of all central nervous system tumours with a relative risk of 1.19 [95% CI = 1.10-1.30] per 10 cm increase in height, p <0.001: the risks did not differ significantly between specified glioma and meningioma (relative risks = 1.24, [95% CI = 1.09-1.40] and 1.11 [95% CI = 0.94-1.31], respectively). Body mass index was also related to central nervous system tumour incidence, with a relative risk of 1.17 [95% CI = 1.03-1.34] per 10 kg/m2 increase in body mass index, p = 0.02. Again, the risks did not different significantly between specified glioma and meningioma (relative risks = 1.07 [95% CI = 0.87-1.32] and 1.46 [95% CI = 1.12-1.91], respectively). Smoking status, alcohol intake, socio-economic level, parity, age at first birth, and oral contraceptive use were not associated with the risk of glioma or meningioma tumours.
Conclusion
For women in the UK, the incidence of central nervous system tumours increases with increasing height and increasing body mass index.
