ASSOCIATION OF FAMILY HISTORY OF CERVICAL, OVARIAN, AND UTERINE-CANCER WITH HISTOLOGICAL CATEGORIES OF LUNG-CANCER - THE IOWA WOMENS HEALTHSTUDY

A family history of cervical, ovarian, or uterine cancer has been show n to be associated with increased lung cancer risk among postmenopausa l women, The present report examines the hypotheses that a family hist ory of cervical cancer is positively associated with histological subt ypes of lung cancer most strongly associated with smoking and that a f amily history of ovarian or uterine cancer are positively associated w ith risk of adenocarcinoma of the lung, Data are from the Iowa Women's Health Study, a prospective cohort study of 34,480 women ages 55-69 i n 1986, Personal smoking histories, use of alcohol, and family history of selected cancers in first- and second-degree relatives were collec ted at baseline, Follow-up for cancer occurrence was achieved through the State Health Registry of Iowa, After baseline exclusions, a total of 343 incident lung cancers were identified in the cohort at risk thr ough 1994, Women with a family history of cervical cancer in a first-d egree relative had a multivariate-adjusted relative risk of lung cance r of 1.6 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.98-2.6] compared to women wi thout a family history, The risk was particularly high for malignancie s most strongly associated with smoking (squamous, small cell, and lar ge cell tumors; relative risk, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.1-3.7), Consistent with our hypotheses, a family history of ovarian cancer was associated with an approximately 2-fold increased risk (multivariate adjusted) of ade nocarcinoma of the lung; the association with malignancies more strong ly associated with smoking was inverse (relative risk, 0.6; 95% CI, 0. 2-2.4), A family history of uterine cancer was not associated with ade nocarcinoma, but there was a positive association observed for the mos t strongly smoking-associated histological types, These results sugges t that a family history of cervical cancer is a modest independent ris k factor for lung cancers most strongly associated with smoking, and a family history of ovarian cancer is a risk factor for adenocarcinoma of the lung.