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SUMMARY There is increased concern over the apparent rise in incidence of patients with carcinoma of the ovary, particularly in older women. In an attempt to identify aetiological factors 300 women with cancer of the ovary diagnosed at laparatomy were studied. A questionnaire was administered to these women (Group A) and to two control groups matched by age. The first control group (Group B) comprised patients in a gynaecological ward and the second (Group C) comprised women on the lists of general practitioners living in the same areas as the index cases. Differences were shown in the obstetric history of the three groups. Fewer of the women in Group A had married and fewer had ever been pregnant and the family size was smaller. Significantly fewer of them recollected an attack of mumps, measles, or rubella. In all, only 81 of the whole series of 900 had used oral contraceptives, 19 of Group A and 31 in each of the control groups, a statistically significant deficiency. These findings support those of other investigations and suggest lines of further inquiry.During the past decade there has been increased interest in the epidemiology of cancer of the ovary. This condition causes over 3000 deaths each year in the United Kingdom and is a more common cause of death than cancer of the cervix. Since 1950 the mortality rate both in the United Kingdom and the United States of America has steadily increased. Detailed analysis of the figures for England and Wales (Registrar General) show that the main increase in death rates for carcinoma of the ovary was in those of 65 years and older (Figure), in contrast to cancer of cervix uteri, for which the rates in this age group appear to be declining.West (1966) reported a study of 175 women with ovarian cancer, compared with the same number of patients with non-malignant conditions of the ovary.He commented that the study by Dorn and Cutler (1959) showed that there was a higher morbidity among never-married women. The only positive finding of West was of a lower incidence of mumpsparotitis among the patients with malignant ovarian tumours. Wynder et al. (1969) also studied 150 women with ovarian cancers and compared them with 300 age-matched hospital controls, 25% of whom had cancer of other sites. He did not find a relationship with pregnancy or marital state, but he did find that the women with ovarian cancer had a less frequent history of mumps than his control groups. The women with ovarian cancer more frequently had an earlier menarche, heavier periods, and dysmenorrhoea. But

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Whitwell, F., Newhouse, Muriel, L., and Bennett, Diane R. (1974).British Journal of Industrial Medicine,31, 298-303. A study of histological cell types of lung cancer in workers suffering from asbestosis in the United Kingdom. The present study concerns the predominant cell type of lung cancer in workers with certified asbestosis who died of carcinoma of the lung in the United Kingdom between 1962 and 1972. Clinical data, necropsy reports, histological sections, and in some cases paraffin blocks were obtained from the nine pneumoconiosis panels in the country and from hospitals where the patients had been treated. Histological analysis was confined to the 88 male and nine female cases in which adequate postmortem tissue had been obtained. The number of female cases was considered to be too small to be of value as a separate series. Among the males, adenocarcinoma was the commonest type of lung cancer found in 34%. Information about the smoking habits of 69 of the 88 men was obtained; all had smoked at some time. There was little difference between the smoking habits of any group whatever the cell type of carcinoma. The difficulty in finding a comparable series of non-asbestos-exposed individuals is pointed out. It is the usual practice to hold a necropsy on any patient when asbestosis has been certified wherever the place of death. This series therefore has a wider basis of selection than any hospital-based series. Cigarette smoking can exert a carcinogenic effect on different parts of the bronchial tree, producing squamous or oat-celled tumours proximally and adenocarcinoma distally. Asbestos dust lying in distal parts of the lung may exert a co-carcinogenic probably a multiplicative effect with tobacco smoke, producing adenocarcinoma of the distal part of the respiratory tract.