Grant Number:	5R03CA089798-02 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Schwartz, Gary
Organization:	Wake Forest University Health Sciences
Project Title:	Cadmium & Pancreatic Cancer: a Pilot Case-Control Study
Fiscal Year:	2003

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Little is known about the etiology of pancreatic cancer, which causes more than 29,000 deaths per year in the U.S. The P.I. recently proposed that cadmium is a cause of pancreatic cancer (Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers &Prevention, 9:139-145, 2000). Cadmium is a non-essential metal that accumulates in the human pancreas. Cadmium is known to cause pancreatic cancer in animals and is a plausible cause of pancreatic cancer in humans. We will conduct a pilot, hospital-based case-control study to determine whether exposure to cadmium, as measured by questionnaire data on dietary, occupational and recreational exposure to cadmium, and by measurements of cadmium in urine, predicts risk for pancreatic cancer. We hypothesize that, controlling for age and smoking history, reported exposure to cadmium and cadmium levels in urine will be higher from persons with pancreatic cancer than from persons without pancreatic cancer. Our Specific Aims are to: 1. Recruit 50 patients with incident cancer of the exocrine pancreas (cases) seen at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC). 2. Recruit two sets of control patients: a. 50 patients matched on race, gender, smoking history, and age (4- 5 years) without cancer seen inthe Department of Gastroenterology (G.I.) at WFUBMC (the clinic referral population) b. 50 patients matched on race, gender, smoking history, and age (4-5 years) without cancer seen at General Internal Medicine clinics at WFUBMC (the hospital referral population). 3. Obtain informed consent, urine samples, and questionnaire data for cases and controls. 4. Analyze these data to determine risk of pancreatic cancer from: cadmium in urine, corrected for creatinine levels (a biomarker of exposure to cadmium), reported exposure to cadmium, and retinol binding protein in urine (a measure of biological effect of exposure to cadmium). 5. Secondarily, analyze urine specimens for zinc and copper and compare tile patient groups with respect to the zinc:cadmium ratio, and to the concentrations of copper.





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