Smoking Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Smoking, including details on cigarettes, cancer, lung, tar, nicotine.

Maternal smoking and the epidemic of testicular cancer--a nested case-control study.

Pettersson A, Akre O, Richiardi L, Ekbom A, Kaijser M

Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. andreas.h.pettersson@ki.se

For no apparent reason, the incidence of testicular cancer has increased to epidemic proportions in many countries. Pregnancy smoking has been suggested to be a cause. Previous analytical studies have been negative, but the inherent difficulties in retrospective assessment of this exposure have led to no definite conclusion. We have conducted a population-based case-control study on 192 cases of testicular germ-cell cancer-born in Sweden in 1973 onwards and aged >/=15 at cancer diagnosis-and 494 matched controls, where data on maternal smoking were collected during pregnancy. We found no association with testicular cancer for maternal smoking during pregnancy (OR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.64-1.30), and there was no evidence of a dose-response effect. We conclude that the epidemic rise in testicular cancer in many populations is not due to the surge in smoking among women.

Published 8 March 2007 in Int J Cancer, 120(9): 2044-6.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2006-2008 Smoking Research Today. All Rights Reserved.