title: A large-scale prospective cohort study on diet and cancer in The Netherlands.
abstract: In 1986, a prospective cohort study on diet and cancer was started in The Netherlands. The cohort (n = 120, 852) of 55-69 year old men (48.2%) and women (51.8%) originates from 204 computerized municipal population registries. At baseline, participants completed a self-administered questionnaire on diet and potential confounding variables. In addition, about 67% of the participants provided toenail clippings. Cancer follow-up consists of record linkage to a pathology registry and to cancer registries. The initial interest is in stomach, colorectal, breast and lung tumors. A case-cohort approach is applied, in which detailed follow-up information of a random subcohort (n = 5000) provides an estimate of the person-time experience of the cohort. Exposure data of the subcohort will be combined with those of incident cases, yielding exposure-specific incidence rate ratios. The intraindividual variation in determinants is estimated by annually repeated measurements (n = 250) within the subcohort. The rationale, efficiency aspects and study characteristics are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, University of Limburg, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: van den Brandt
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Goldbohm
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: van 't Veer
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Volovics
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Hermus
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sturmans
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D009426:Netherlands; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012042:Registries; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires