Cancer history and melanoma risk

Principal Investigator

Name
Sonja Berndt

Degrees
PhD, PharmD

Institution
NCI, DCEG, OEEB

Position Title
Investigator

Email
berndts@mail.nih.gov

About this CDAS Project

Study
PLCO (Learn more about this study)

Project ID
PLCO-10

Initial CDAS Request Approval
Dec 13, 2012

Title
Cancer history and melanoma risk

Summary
Melanoma shares several genetic susceptibility loci with other cancers, suggesting that at least some etiologic factors may be shared between melanoma and other cancers. Recently, we evaluated the association between confirmed cancers and the subsequent diagnosis of melanoma in 42,420 from the Health Professionals’ Follow-up Study over a 24-year period (1986–2010). We identified 540 melanoma cases during the follow-up. Interestingly, history of prostate cancer was associated with a significantly increased risk of subsequent melanoma with multivariate-adjusted relative risk (RR) of 1.81 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.30-2.50). We would like to follow-up this finding in the PLCO Cancer Screening Trial to see if history of cancer, particularly prostate cancer, is also associated with the risk of melanoma.

Aims

The specific aim of this study is to evaluate the association between history of cancer, particularly prostate cancer, and the risk of melanoma in the PLCO Trial.

Collaborators

Jiali Han (Harvard University)