Berg-Beckhoff Gabriele, Schüz Joachim, Blettner Maria, Münster Eva, Schlaefer Klaus, Wahrendorf Jürgen, Schlehofer Brigitte
Department of Epidemiology and International Public Health, School of Public Health, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany.
Eur J Epidemiol. 2009;24(8):433-40. doi: 10.1007/s10654-009-9355-6. Epub 2009 May 31.
The aim of the present analysis was to examine the association of a medical history of asthma, hay fever, eczema, or epilepsy with the risk of glioma and meningioma. Data of a German population-based case-control study included 381 meningioma cases, 366 glioma cases, and 1,494 controls. Participants' histories of asthma, hay fever, eczema, and epilepsy and the respective ages at onset were asked during a personal interview. A small inverse association between allergic condition and both glioma (odds ratio: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.70-1.22) and meningioma (odd ratio: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.66-1.14) was found. For glioma, this inverse association was more pronounced in persons reporting to have asthma compared to other allergic conditions. The positive association between epilepsy and particularly glioma suggests that epilepsy is an early symptom of the disease. As the association was seen also for epilepsies occurring more than a decade before the diagnosis of glioma, this might indicate either an aetiological role of epilepsy, or a relatively long preclinical phase. In conclusion our study confirms previous findings of case control studies but not those from cohort studies. However, possible selection bias in case control studies might not explain the different results in its entirety.
本分析的目的是研究哮喘、花粉症、湿疹或癫痫病史与胶质瘤和脑膜瘤风险之间的关联。一项基于德国人群的病例对照研究的数据包括381例脑膜瘤病例、366例胶质瘤病例和1494名对照。在个人访谈中询问了参与者的哮喘、花粉症、湿疹和癫痫病史以及各自的发病年龄。发现过敏状况与胶质瘤（比值比：0.92；95%置信区间：0.70 - 1.22）和脑膜瘤（比值比：0.87；95%置信区间：0.66 - 1.14）之间存在微弱的负相关。对于胶质瘤，与其他过敏状况相比，这种负相关在报告患有哮喘的人群中更为明显。癫痫与尤其是胶质瘤之间的正相关表明癫痫是该疾病的早期症状。由于在胶质瘤诊断前十多年发生的癫痫中也观察到了这种关联，这可能表明癫痫具有病因学作用，或者存在相对较长的临床前期。总之，我们的研究证实了病例对照研究的先前发现，但未证实队列研究的发现。然而，病例对照研究中可能存在的选择偏倚可能无法完全解释不同的结果。
