Characteristics in Youth Predictive of Adult-Onset Malignant Lymphomas, Melanomas, and Leukemias: Brief Communications 2 3

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Abstract
College health records of 50,000 male alumni of Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.) and the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pa.) were examined for characteristics that were predictive of risk of fatal lymphaden, blood, and skin cancers. Among these alumni, 45 men with Hodgkin's disease, 89 with non-Hodgkin's malignant lymphoma, 45 with malignant melanoma, 27 with lymphatic leukemia, 41 with myeloid leukemia, and 30 with other and unspecified leukemia died from their disease in 1.71 million person-years of observation. Men grouped according to the type of cancers they had, identified from death certificates, were contrasted with four times as many surviving classmates in terms of potential predictive characteristics. Relative risks of these six cancers may be grouped by predictive characteristics in youth as follows: 1) History of common contagious diseases of childhood was predictive of a lower risk of Hodgkin's disease and lymphatic leukemia, but varicella indicated increased risk of other malignant lymphomas and unspecified leukemia. 2) Tonsillectomy was associated with higher risk of unspecified leukemia. 3) Obesity was a predictive factor of excess risk of Hodgkin's disease, whereas leanness was associated with higher risk of other lymphomas. 4) Both coffee drinking and heavy cigarette smoking pointed to higher risk of Hodgkin's disease, myeloid leukemia, and lymphatic leukemia. 5) Outdoor environmental exposure indicated increased risk of malignant melanoma. In the tendencies noted, Hodgkin's disease and lymphatic leukemia had parallel predictive factors that were opposite to those of non-Hodgkin's malignant lymphoma, myeloid leukemia, and unspecified leukemias. Malignant melanoma shared none of these predictive characteristics. These findings are presented as clues deserving further exploration for any etiologic significance they may hold for lymphaden and blood cancers.

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