AN ETIOLOGIC STUDY OF FACETS DISEASE

The objective of this case-control questionnaire study was to determin e whether a history of measles or of dog ownership occurred with diffe rent frequencies in Paget's disease patients and in age- and sex-match ed controls, Clustering of Paget's disease cases in geographic foci wa s also looked for, as well as a difference in the prevalence of Paget' s disease according to whether the subsoil was composed of rocks from the primary or the tertiary-quaternary geologic periods, Completed que stionnaires were obtained from 247 Paget's disease patients and 281 co ntrols, Paget's disease was significantly associated with a history of measles (odds ratio, 2.46) but not with a history of mumps (odds rati o, 0.79) or with dog ownership (odds ratio, 0.97), The 174 cases of Pa get's disease in subjects from the study district were distributed thr oughout the district, with no geographic clustering, This result was c onfirmed by the analysis of the ratios of Paget's disease cases over t he total population in each county in the study district, The incidenc e of Paget's disease was slightly higher in areas with a primary subso il, but the difference was not statistically significant (chi-square, 0.79; P=0.37).