Hodgkin's disease: A case-control study

Abstract

Purpose: To test some hypotheses concerning risk factors for Hodgkin's disease (HD). Material and methods: A case-control study conducted in Beograd from 1993 to 1996 enrolled 100 patients with histologically confirmed HD and 100 hospitalized non-cancer patients (controls), individually matched by sex, age (±2 years) and place of residence. A number of risk factors was evaluated, in the analysis of which the McNemar's test and univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used. Results: According to multivariate analysis the following factors were significantly related to HD: white collar occupation, daily consumption of milk, cheese and fruit, use of lard for food preparation, age difference between participant and first older sibling >3 years and possession of pets. Conclusion: The results obtained support the hypothesis that, in addition to other factors, some dietary components influence the occurrence of HD.