Case-control study of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

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Adult non-Hodgkin?s lymphoma (NHL) is one of the most rapidly increasing cancers of recent times. The rise has occurred worldwide in men and women of all ages. The reason for most of the rise is unknown. It has recently been proposed that part of the upsurge may be due to increases in sun exposure which have occurred during the same period. There is some indirect evidence to support this hypothesis. For example, the rate of occurrence of NHL is higher closer to the equator in Australia than it is in England and Wales, and NHL is diagnosed more frequently among British migrants to Victoria than it is in their homeland. The sunlight hypothesis will be tested by comparing the pattern of sun exposure in Tasmanians diagnosed with NHL during the years 1998-2001 and in a sample of Tasmanians without the disease. tasmania has been chosen because levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation are low there in all but the summer months, when it approaches the levels of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. There is therefore a greater difference in UV exposure between the most exposed and the least exposed in Tasmania, making it an ideal location to test the hypothesis. The link between NHL and a measure of melanin pigmentation in the skin will also be studied. The incidence of NHL is higher in lighter-skinned ethnic groups than it is in darker-skinned people living at the same latitude, but it is not known whether risk varies within Caucasian populations. A new measure of melanin in the skin, developed at the Menzies Centre for Population Health Research in Hobart, will better allow the effects of skin colour to be studied.