Tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption as risk factors for thymoma - A European case-control study

PURPOSE: Hardly anything is known about the aetiology of thymoma. This paper presents data regarding tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption in relation to thymoma from the first case-control study performed on this rare tumour.METHODS: A European multi-centre case-control study including incident cases aged 35-69 years with thymoma between 1995 and 1997, was conducted in seven countries. A set of controls, used in seven parallel case-control studies by the same research group was used, including population-based controls from five countries and hospital controls with colon cancer from two countries. Altogether 103 cases, accepted by a reference pathologist, 712 colon cancer controls, and 2…