Mark Purdue

NCI, DCEG, OEEB

PLCO (Learn more about this study)

2009-0172

Oct 1, 2009

Reproductive history and renal cell carcinoma

Findings from several epidemiologic studies suggest an increased risk of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) among women with increasing number of live births and, possibly, with younger age at first birth. Most of the epidemiologic evidence is based on case-control studies. Evidence from cohort studies, though generally supportive of an association between parity and RCC, have often been limited by incomplete adjustment for important RCC risk factors (e.g., obesity, smoking, hypertension), and have typically involved too few accrued cases to perform informative subgroup analyses. To better understand the relationship between parity and other reproductive factors and RCC risk, we propose to conduct a pooled analysis across three cohort studies (PLCO, the U.S. Radiologic Technologists Cohort (USRT) and the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study). With an anticipated ~700 female accrued cases across the three cohorts, the proposed analysis will have reasonable statistical power to detect weak effects. As a secondary aim, we will also investigate the association between reproductive factors and risk of transitional cell carcinoma of the renal pelvis, a rare malignancy with a risk factor profile distinct from RCC.