AACR: Secondhand Smoke Associated With Bladder Cancer

Also, red meat intake and genetic variations may jointly influence bladder cancer susceptibility

TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Secondhand smoke, high consumption of red or fried meat, and certain genetic variants are associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer, according to the results of two studies presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 17 to 21 in Washington, D.C.

Li Tao, M.D., of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues studied 202 bladder cancer patients who were lifelong nonsmokers and 268 lifelong nonsmoking controls. They found that lifelong nonsmokers whose mothers smoked more than 10 pack-years had a 3.51-fold increased risk of bladder cancer compared to their lifelong nonsmoking counterparts who had never been exposed to secondhand smoke. Individuals sharing an office environment five or more hours per day with coworkers who smoked were at two-fold elevated risk of bladder cancer. However, the researchers found that CYP1A2 and NAT2 acetylation phenotypes exerted a moderate modifying effect on the association between secondhand smoke and bladder cancer.

In another study, Jie Lin, Ph.D., of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and colleagues evaluated 884 patients with confirmed bladder cancer and 878 healthy controls to determine the link between meat consumption, cooking methods, genetic predisposition and bladder cancer risk. They found that higher consumption of beef steaks, pork chops, bacon, fried chicken and fried fish, as well as consumption of meats cooked medium-well or well-done, were each associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer. In addition, elevated bladder cancer risk associated with high read meat intake was most significant among individuals with a high number of unfavorable genotypes in the heterocyclic amine (HCA) metabolic pathways.

"These results strongly support that red meat intake and genetic variants in the HCA metabolic pathways jointly influence bladder cancer susceptibility," Lin and colleagues conclude.

Abstract No. 4699
Abstract No. 2825
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