Assessment of Bladder Cancer Risk Factors: Central European Health Study

Purpose: Urinary bladder cancer is the ninth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world and fifth most common malignancy in the United States. Because of the lifetime needs for surveillance, treatment and management of recurrent tumors, it poses a significant economic burden. A pilot case-control study was conducted to explore relationship between established and suspected risk factors and risk of different types of bladder cancer. We preliminarily described distributions of risk factors among bladder cancer cases. Method: A multi-center case-control study was conducted in three Central European countries during 2012-2013. Cases (n=83) were aged 30-79, diagnosed with primary, histologically or cytologically confirmed incident bladder cancer. Participants were in-person interviewed to collect information on tobacco and alcohol use, second-hand smoking (SHS), history of chemical exposures, medical history and habitual dietary history. We stratified the cases by gender to compare distributions of risk factors in men and women. Result: Mean age of cases was 62.7 years; there were more males (78.3%) than females (21.7%). 77% of all patients ever smoked, and 65% of the smokers have quitted smoking before diagnosis. Among smokers, men were more likely to be heavy smokers than women (p value is 66.7% for men and women respectively, p value≤0.05). More male patients ever exposed to potential chemical carcinogens than female patients (58.5% for men and 38.9 % for women, p value=0.20), and the major sources of chemical exposures were from petroleum/gasoline, vehicle exhaust, paining and wood dust. About 14% of female ever used hair dyes. Compared to female, men had higher body mass index (BMI) (27.2 for men and 26.9 for women, p value≤0.05), and men were more likely to have higher frequency of meat consumption everyday (14.3% for men and 5.6% for women, p value<0.05). Conclusion: The preliminary results showed different distributions of risk factors among male and female bladder cancer cases. Further case control comparisons are needed to investigate different risk factors associated with bladder cancer across gender and subtype of bladder cancer in this study.