Development of a population-based cancer case-control study in Southern China

Abstract

With its population of over 1.3 billion persons, China offers abundant opportunities to discover causes of disease. However, few rigorous population-based case-control studies have as yet been conducted in mainland China. We conducted a populationbased case-control study of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Guangdong Province and Guangxi Autonomous Region. We collected questionnaires and biospecimens from incident cases recruited between March 2010 and December 2013, and populationbased controls between November 2010 and November 2014. Preparatory activities prior to subject enrollment required approximately 18 months. We enrolled a total of 2554 NPC cases and 2648 controls. Among all identified cases, 83.8% participated. For the participating cases, the median time between diagnosis and interview was 2 days. Among all contacted controls, 82.7% participated. From the enrolled cases, we collected 2518 blood specimens (provided by 98.6% of eligible cases), 2350 saliva specimens (92.0%), 2514 hair specimens (98.4%), and 2507 toenail/ fingernail specimens (98.2%). From the enrolled controls, we collected 2416 blood specimens (91.2%), 2505 saliva specimens (94.6%), 2517 hair specimens (95.1%), and 2514 toenail/fingernail specimens (94.9%). We demonstrate that populationbased epidemiologic research can successfully be conducted in southern China. The study protocols, databases, and biobank will serve as an extraordinarily valuable resource for testing future etiologic hypotheses.