RISK-FACTORS FOR CEREBRAL GLIOMA IN ADULTS - A CASE-CONTROL STUDY IN AN ITALIAN POPULATION

A case-control study on risk factors for cerebral tumors was conducted on an adult Italian population by the four Neurosurgical Departments of the Veneto Region, i.e. Padua, Treviso, Verona and Vicenza. The stu dy recruited 195 cases of histologically-confirmed cerebral glioma. On e hospital control was selected for each case. Cases and controls were matched for age, sex, date of hospitalization and residence. Informat ion on both cases and controls was obtained from a relative. Uninvolve d interviewers administered a structured questionnaire including items on the subject's education, occupation, lifestyle, medical history, e xposure to radiation for diagnosis or therapy, head trauma and blood g roup and the medical history of family members. The series of cerebral tumors was first considered as an indistinct set: none of the risk fa ctors examined showed a statistically significant association. A posit ive association was found with blood group A (OR = 6) when low-grade a strocytomas (n = 41) were considered separately. As for the malignant astrocytomas (n = 132), there was a suggestive but not statistically s ignificant association with the presence of CNS tumors among first- an d second-degree relatives (OR = 7.0). On the whole, this study yielded no clear and meaningful association for the various risk factors anal yzed.