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Kongress Medizin und Gesellschaft 2007

17. bis 21.09.2007, Augsburg

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Childbearing history: a riskfactor for uveal melanoma? Results from the RIFA case-control study

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  • Andrea Schmidt-Pokrzywniak - Martin-Luther-Universität Halle Wittenberg, Halle
  • Karl-Heinz Jöckel - Medizinische Informatik, Biometie und Epidemiologie, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Essen
  • Norbert Bornfeld - Augenklinik, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Essen
  • Andreas Stang - Martin-Luther-Universität Halle Wittenberg, Halle

Kongress Medizin und Gesellschaft 2007. Augsburg, 17.-21.09.2007. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2007. Doc07gmds680

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/gmds2007/07gmds680.shtml

Published: September 6, 2007

© 2007 Schmidt-Pokrzywniak et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Background: Uveal melanoma is a rare disease with a poor prognosis and little is known about its aetiology. There are very little data reported on the relationship of uveal melanoma and pregnancy. Only two studies with opposed findings have been carried out to study the association between childbearing history and the risk of uveal melanoma.

Methods: To study this association a total of 214 female patients and 373 female population controls matching on age and region were interviewed by phone. Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).

Results: Among women who gave at least one live birth we found an increased risk of uveal melanoma (OR= 1.6; 95% CI=1.0-2.6). The level of relative risk decreased with the number of live birth (1 child OR=1.9; 2 children OR=1.6; 3 or more children OR= 1.2).

Discussion: Hartge et al. observed an increased risk among women who had ever been pregnant (RR=1.4; 95% CI=0.8-2.2) (2). Several lines of evidence suggest that hormones may influence the development of melanoma, including uveal melanoma. Hyperpigmentation, reflecting increased activity of melanocytes, can be induced by hormonal stimuli (e.g. pregnancies).

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References

1.
Lee JA, Storer BE. Malignant melanoma female/male death ratio. Lancet. 1981;1:1419.
2.
Hartge P, Tucker MA, Shields JA, Augsburger J, Hoover RN, Fraumeni JF. Case-control study of female hormones and eye melanoma. Cancer Res. 1989;49:4622-5.