Skip to main content
British Journal of Cancer logoLink to British Journal of Cancer
. 2000 Jun;82(11):1875–1878. doi: 10.1054/bjoc.2000.1215

Retinoblastoma incidence and sunlight exposure

A Jemal 1, S S Devesa 1, T R Fears 1, J F Fraumeni Jr 1
PMCID: PMC2363228  PMID: 10839306

Abstract

To evaluate positive findings from an earlier report, we studied the relation between retinoblastoma incidence and ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation levels in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) programme areas of the USA using weighted regression, as well as in international data after adjusting for race, economic development, and climate. The association was not statistically significant within the USA (P> 0.20). At an international level, the relation was significant overall and after adjusting for economic development, but it was not significant after adjusting for race and tropical climate, suggesting that environmental factors other than UV-B may be responsible for the geographic patterns of retinoblastoma. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign

Keywords: retinoblastoma, sunlight, race, economic development, tropical climate, SEER

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (153.2 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Bunin G. R., Meadows A. T., Emanuel B. S., Buckley J. D., Woods W. G., Hammond G. D. Pre- and postconception factors associated with sporadic heritable and nonheritable retinoblastoma. Cancer Res. 1989 Oct 15;49(20):5730–5735. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Fears T. R., Scotto J., Schneiderman M. A. Skin cancer, melanoma, and sunlight. Am J Public Health. 1976 May;66(5):461–464. doi: 10.2105/ajph.66.5.461. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Hooper M. L. Is sunlight an aetiological agent in the genesis of retinoblastoma? Br J Cancer. 1999 Mar;79(7-8):1273–1276. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6690204. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Kramer S., Meadows A. T., Jarrett P., Evans A. E. Incidence of childhood cancer: experience of a decade in a population-based registry. J Natl Cancer Inst. 1983 Jan;70(1):49–55. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Parkin D. M., Pisani P., Ferlay J. Global cancer statistics. CA Cancer J Clin. 1999 Jan-Feb;49(1):33-64, 1. doi: 10.3322/canjclin.49.1.33. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Stiller C. A., Parkin D. M. Geographic and ethnic variations in the incidence of childhood cancer. Br Med Bull. 1996 Oct;52(4):682–703. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a011577. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Sun E. C., Fears T. R., Goedert J. J. Epidemiology of squamous cell conjunctival cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 1997 Feb;6(2):73–77. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Tamboli A., Podgor M. J., Horm J. W. The incidence of retinoblastoma in the United States: 1974 through 1985. Arch Ophthalmol. 1990 Jan;108(1):128–132. doi: 10.1001/archopht.1990.01070030134045. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Tucker M. A., Shields J. A., Hartge P., Augsburger J., Hoover R. N., Fraumeni J. F., Jr Sunlight exposure as risk factor for intraocular malignant melanoma. N Engl J Med. 1985 Sep 26;313(13):789–792. doi: 10.1056/NEJM198509263131305. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from British Journal of Cancer are provided here courtesy of Cancer Research UK

RESOURCES