INTERNATIONAL RENAL-CELL-CANCER STUDY .6. THE ROLE OF MEDICAL AND FAMILY HISTORY

A number of medical conditions have been linked with renal-cell cancer , although the evidence is not consistent in every case. In a large in ternational case-control study of renal-cell cancer, we examined, amon g other hypotheses, associations with a personal history of certain me dical conditions and a family history of cancer of the kidney or thyro id. Relative risks (RR), adjusted for the effects of age, gender, body -mass index, tobacco smoking and study centre, were significantly incr eased by a history of kidney stones or thyroid or kidney disease. The RR were not altered by additional adjustment for hypertension, or when diagnoses were restricted to those made at least 5 or 10 years before 1987 (the usual ''cut-off'' date). The link with kidney injury is par ticularly likely to be affected by recall bias. Increased RR of border line significance were found for kidney infection (RR, 1.2) and diabet es (RR, 1.4). Having one first-degree relative with kidney cancer was associated with a significantly increased risk of renal-cell cancer(RR , 1.6; 95% CI, 1.1-2.4). Seven cases reported 2 first-degree relatives with kidney cancer. No controls had first-degree relatives with kidne y cancer. None of our participants reported having von Hippel-Lindau d isease. The data suggests that a few conditions of the kidney are stro ngly associated with renal-cell cancer and that heredity plays a role in a small proportion of cases. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.