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Blood transfusion history and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma: an InterLymph pooled analysis

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Abstract

Purpose

To conduct a pooled analysis assessing the association of blood transfusion with risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

Methods

We used harmonized data from 13 case–control studies (10,805 cases, 14,026 controls) in the InterLymph Consortium. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using unconditional logistic regression, adjusted for study design variables.

Results

Among non-Hispanic whites (NHW), history of any transfusion was inversely associated with NHL risk for men (OR 0.74; 95% CI 0.65–0.83) but not women (OR 0.92; 95% CI 0.83–1.03), pheterogeneity = 0.014. Transfusion history was not associated with risk in other racial/ethnic groups. There was no trend with the number of transfusions, time since first transfusion, age at first transfusion, or decade of first transfusion, and further adjustment for socioeconomic status, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, and HCV seropositivity did not alter the results. Associations for NHW men were stronger in hospital-based (OR 0.56; 95% CI 0.45–0.70) but still apparent in population-based (OR 0.84; 95% CI 0.72–0.98) studies.

Conclusions

In the setting of a literature reporting mainly null and some positive associations, and the lack of a clear methodologic explanation for our inverse association restricted to NHW men, the current body of evidence suggests that there is no association of blood transfusion with risk of NHL.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

DLBCL:

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

FL:

Follicular lymphoma

HIV:

Human immunodeficiency virus

NHL:

non-Hodgkin lymphoma

NHW:

non-Hispanic whites

SES:

Socioeconomic status

TCL:

T-cell lymphoma

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Acknowledgments

We thank the following individuals for their substantial contributions to this project: Aaron D. Norman, Dennis P. Robinson, and Priya Ramar (Mayo Clinic College of Medicine) for their work at the InterLymph Data Coordinating Center in organizing, collating, harmonizing, and documenting the data from the participating studies in the InterLymph Consortium. We thank Sondra Buehler for editorial assistance.

Funding

British Columbia study: Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), Canadian Cancer Society, and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research; Engela study: Association pour la recherché contre le Cancer, Institut National du Cancer, Fondation de France, Fondation contre la Leucémie, Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (ANSES); EpiLymph: European Commission (QLK4-CT-2000-00422 and FOOD-CT-2006-023103), Spanish Ministry of Health (CIBERESP, PI11/01810, RCESP C03/09, RTICESP C03/10, and RTIC RD06/0020/0095), Rio Hortega (CM13/00232), Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca–Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalonian Government, 2009SGR1026), National Institutes of Health (contract NO1-CO-12400), Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (PRIN 2007 prot.2007WEJLZB, PRIN 2009 prot. 20092ZELR2), Italian Association for Cancer Research (IG grant 11855/2011), Federal Office for Radiation Protection (StSch4261 and StSch4420), José Carreras Leukemia Foundation (DJCLS-R04/08), German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF-01-EO-1303), Health Research Board, Ireland and Cancer Research Ireland, and Czech Republic MH CZ—DRO (MMCI, 00209805); Iowa-Minnesota study: Intramural Research Program of the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health; Aviano-Naples (Italy) study: Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC); Los Angeles study: National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health (R01 CA50850); Mayo Clinic study: National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health (R01 CA92153 and P50 CA97274), Lymphoma Research Foundation (164738), and the Henry J. Predolin Foundation; NCI-SEER study: Intramural Research Program of the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health and Public Health Service (contracts N01-PC-65064, N01-PC-67008, N01-PC-67009, N01-PC-67010, and N02-PC-71105); Nebraska study: American Institute for Cancer Research (99B083) and the National Cancer Institute (CA94770 and CA100555); Australian study: National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia (Grant number: 990920), the Cancer Council NSW, Australia, University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine; UCSF study: National Cancer Institute (R01 CA45614, R03 CA89745, R01 CA087014); UK study: Bloodwise (UK); and Yale study: National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health (CA62006 and CA165923).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Epidemiology, Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA

    James R. Cerhan

  2. Epidemiology and Cancer Statistics Group, Department of Health Sciences, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, UK

    Eleanor Kane & Alexandra G. Smith

  3. Centre for Big Data Research in Health, University of New South Wales, AGSM Building, Level 1 (G27), UNSW, Kensington, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Claire M. Vajdic

  4. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, 9609 Medical Center Drive Room 7E452, Bethesda, MD, 20892-9778, USA

    Martha S. Linet

  5. Registre des Hémopathies Malignes de la Gironde, Institut Bergonié, University of Bordeaux, Inserm, Team EPICENE, UMR 1219, 33000, Paris, France

    Alain Monnereau

  6. Epidemiology of Childhood and Adolescent Cancers Group, Inserm, Center of Research in Epidemiology and Statistics Sorbonne Paris Cité (CRESS), Paris, France

    Alain Monnereau & Jacqueline Clavel

  7. Department of Population Sciences, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, 1500 E Duarte Rd, Duarte, CA, 91010, USA

    Leslie Bernstein

  8. Cancer Epidemiology Research Programme, |IDIBELL | CIBERESP| Institut Català d’Oncologia, Barcelona, Spain

    Silvia de Sanjose

  9. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, 5841 S. Maryland Ave, MC 2000, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Brian C.-H Chiu

  10. School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    John J. Spinelli

  11. Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico IRCCS, Aviano, Italy

    L. Dal Maso & Diego Serraino

  12. Section of Surgical Outcomes and Epidemiology, Department of Surgery, Yale School of Medicine, 60 College Street, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA

    Yawei Zhang

  13. Division of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics, Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Beth R. Larrabee & Susan L. Slager

  14. Departments of Preventive Medicine and Pathology, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Wendy Cozen

  15. Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France

    Jacqueline Clavel

  16. Department of Epidemiology, Brown School of Public Health, Providence, RI, 02912, USA

    Tongzhang Zheng

  17. Dept of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 280, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA

    Elizabeth A. Holly & Paige M. Bracci

  18. Department of Pathology, City of Hope Medical Center, 1500 East Duarte Road, Duarte, CA, 91010, USA

    Dennis D. Weisenberger

Authors
  1. James R. Cerhan
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  2. Eleanor Kane
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  3. Claire M. Vajdic
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  4. Martha S. Linet
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  5. Alain Monnereau
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  6. Leslie Bernstein
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  7. Silvia de Sanjose
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  8. Brian C.-H Chiu
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  9. John J. Spinelli
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  10. L. Dal Maso
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  11. Yawei Zhang
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  12. Beth R. Larrabee
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  13. Wendy Cozen
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  14. Alexandra G. Smith
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  15. Jacqueline Clavel
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  16. Diego Serraino
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  17. Tongzhang Zheng
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  18. Elizabeth A. Holly
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  19. Dennis D. Weisenberger
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  20. Susan L. Slager
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  21. Paige M. Bracci
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Correspondence to James R. Cerhan.

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Cerhan, J.R., Kane, E., Vajdic, C.M. et al. Blood transfusion history and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma: an InterLymph pooled analysis. Cancer Causes Control 30, 889–900 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-019-01188-w

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