A comparison of cancer occurrence in allergic and nonallergic populations.

Patients with significant allergy were surveyed with regard to the incidence of malignancy and a control group of nonallergic individuals was similarly reviewed. In the allergic population of 500 persons in the cancer-bearing age group, there were 12 malignancies, while the nonallergic group of 421 individuals had 14 malignancies. The Chi-squared test of these data gives a value of 0.75, which indicates that there is no significant difference in the incidence of malignancy in the allergic and nonallergic groups. As one would expect, the test of independence between age, cancer and allergy using the Chi-squared statistic is rejected.