1998 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

Epidemiological study of EBV-associated gastric carcinoma

Research Project

Project/Area Number	08670442
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Public health/Health science
Research Institution	Kagoshima University
Principal Investigator	AKIBA Suminori Faculty of Medicine, Kagoshima University, Professor, 医学部, 教授 (50145554)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	SATOH Eiichi Faculty of Medicine, Kagoshima University, Professor, 医学部, 教授 (60004579)
Project Period (FY)	1996 – 1998
Keywords	EBV / Gastric carcinoma / smoking / birth order / epidemiology
Research Abstract	To clarify the difference of environmental factors between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) positive and negative gastric carcinoma cases, we conducted a questionnaire survey in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, from 1996 to 1997. The subjects in the present study were 28 EBV-positive and 60 EBV-negative gastric carcinoma cases. For each EBV-positive case, 2 EBV-negative cases in males and 3 EBV-negative cases in females were matched by sex and age (+/- 5 years old). All subjects were asked the number of siblings, birth order, smoking and drinking habit, intake of beverages, other dietary factors, and occupation. We analyzed the data in the logistic regression models. We found that the birth order or the duration of smoking habit were associated with the risk of EBV-associated gastric carcinoma. The odds ratio (OR) for EBV-positive cases was reduced among persons of late birth order. The risk among persons with five or more siblings was nearly half that among those with four or less, but the ORs were not statistically significant. The OR among persons who have smoked more than 40 years was 6.1 in comparison with persons who have smoked less than 20 year or never smoked. However, the prevalence of smokers/ex-smokers and the dose of cigarettes were not associated with the risk of EBV-positive cases. The findings in the present study indicated that the age at EBV-infection might be related to the development of EBV-associated gastric carcinoma.