Brain Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Brain Cancer, including details on symptoms, benign and malignant tumors, gliomas, treatment.

Active and passive cigarette smoking and risk of intracranial meningioma.

Phillips LE, Longstreth WT, Koepsell T, Custer BS, Kukull WA, van Belle G

Department of Neurology, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash., USA.

Motivated by prior studies, we examined associations between cigarette smoking and risk of intracranial meningioma in a population-based case-control study, including 200 cases and 2 controls matched to each case on age and sex. Subjects were asked to recall their history of active and passive cigarette smoking occurring 10 or more years before the date of meningioma surgery. Ever active smoking was associated with an increased risk of meningioma in men (OR = 2.1; 95% CI 1.1-4.2) but not in women (OR = 0.7; 95% CI 0.5-1.1). The statistical interaction by gender was significant (p = 0.01). In men, risk increased with increasing number of cigarettes smoked daily (p for trend = 0.04). In women, the trend was opposite (p for trend = 0.08). Among never active smokers, passive smoking from a spouse was associated with increased risk in both sexes (OR 2.0; 95% CI 1.1-3.5), and risk increased with increasing duration of exposure (p for trend = 0.02). Uncertain is whether these findings reflect a true biological phenomenon or result from chance or uncontrolled confounding.

Published 2 May 2005 in Neuroepidemiology, 24(3): 117-22.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Brain Cancer Research Today. All Rights Reserved.