FEBRILE INFECTIOUS CHILDHOOD DISEASES IN THE HISTORY OF CANCER-PATIENTS AND MATCHED CONTROLS

The present study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that febr ile infectious childhood diseases (FICDs) are associated with a lower cancer risk in adulthood, since biographical considerations are of gre at importance in anthroposophic medicine. Cancer patients and control patients of 35 anthroposophic general practitioners in Switzerland wer e matched with respect to gender, age and physician. All patients comp leted a questionnaire on their FICD. We collected 424 cases; of these we could analyze 379 matched pairs. The study consistently revealed a lower cancer risk for patients with a history of FICD. The strongest a ssociations were found between patients with non-breast cancers and ru bella respectively chickenpox. A strong association was also found wit h the overall number of FICD both 'classical' (measles, mumps, rubella , pertussis, scarlet-fever and chickenpox) and 'other'. None of these associations was apparent for patients with breast cancer. Unexpectedl y, we found that cancer was diagnosed significantly earlier in life in cancer patients with a history of FICD compared to those without FICD . Our retrospective study showed a significant association between FIC D and the risk of developing cancer. The number of FICD decreased the cancer risk, in particular for non-breast cancers. The relationship wi th tumor site seems to be important also, but can only be addressed in a larger study.