Reduced immunoglobulin E and allergy among adults with glioma compared with controls.
We and others have reported previously that adults with glioma are 1.5- to 4-fold less likely than controls to report a variety of allergic conditions. The consistent nature of this relationship calls for a biological explanation so that preventative or therapeutic modalities can be explored. We enrolled 403 newly diagnosed adult glioma cases in the San Francisco Bay Area over a 3-year period using a population-based cancer registry and 402 age/gender/ethnicity frequency-matched controls identified via random digit dialing. We assessed total, food-specific, and respiratory-specific IgE in available case (n = 228) and control (n = 289) serum samples. IgE levels were associated with gender, age, smoking status, and ethnicity among cases and/or controls. Among the cases, IgE levels were not associated with aspects of glioma therapy including radiation, chemotherapy, or tumor resection. Total IgE levels were lower in cases than controls: age/gender/ethnicity/education/smoking-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for elevated versus normal total IgE was 0.37 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.22-0.64]. For the food panel, OR was 0.12 (95% CI, 0.04-0.41). For the respiratory panel, OR was 0.76 (95% CI, 0.52-1.1). Among respiratory allergies, late age of onset (>12 years) but not IgE levels defined a group with strong associations with risk (OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.33-0.75). These results corroborate and strengthen our findings of an inverse association between allergic reactions and glioma by showing a relationship with a biomarker for allergy and cancer for the first time. Furthermore, the results indicate a complex relationship between allergic disease and glioma risk that varies by allergen and allergic pathology.
Wiemels
Joseph L
JL
Laboratory for Molecular Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143-0560, USA. wiemels@itsa.ucsf.edu
Wiencke
John K
JK
Patoka
Joseph
J
Moghadassi
Michelle
M
Chew
Terri
T
McMillan
Alex
A
Miike
Rei
R
Barger
Geoffrey
G
Wrensch
Margaret
M
D000293:Adolescent; D017668:Age of Onset; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications / Q000276:immunology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003710:Demography; D005910:Glioma / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D006967:Hypersensitivity / Q000150:complications*; D007073:Immunoglobulin E / Q000097:blood*; D012495:San Francisco
D007073:Immunoglobulin E