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Claus Granted $9.5 Million for First National Effort to Study Risk Factors and Quality of Life for Meningioma

Elizabeth B. Claus, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Division of Biostatistics at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) has been awarded a five-year $9.5 million National Institutes of Health grant. It is the first large national effort to study risk factors and quality of life for meningioma.

The study will examine the risk factors associated with a diagnosis of meningioma, the most frequently reported of primary intra-cranial neoplasms. "At present, the two factors for which the strongest evidence exists with respect to an association with meningioma risk are hormones and radiation exposure," says Claus. "However, even these factors remain largely unexplored."

This study is important because of the paucity of information for meningioma, the relatively large number of neurosurgical patients with this diagnosis, and the fact that this tumor is frequently associated with neurological complications and decreased quality of life. This application addresses the underserved area of brain tumor research targeted by the United States House of Representatives and Senate Appropriations Committee as warranting increased attention. The current era represents an ideal time to launch such a study given recent legislation, The Benign Brain Tumor Cancer Registries Amendment, which mandates that federal cancer data collection processes include data on benign brain tumors.

To formally and comprehensively examine the environmental, genetic, pathologic and clinical variables associated with meningioma risk for the first time in a large epidemiological study, Dr. Claus proposes to collect 1520 cases (1000 female and 520 male) and 1520 controls (age, sex, ethnicity and geography matched) from five population-based study sites in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and North Carolina as well as the San Francisco Bay Area and Harris County, Texas.

Additional investigators on this multi-center study include Hongyu Zhao, Ph.D., Ira V. Hiscock Associate Professor of Public Health in Biostatistics at YSPH, Joseph Wiemels, Ph.D. and Margaret Wrensch, Ph.D. of the University of California at San Francisco, Joellen Schildkraut, Ph.D. at Duke University, Melissa Bondy, Ph.D. at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Dr. Peter M. Black at Brigham and Women's Hospital.