Mulitnational projects

- GENERALE
- The SCORE project
- The EPIC study at IARC, Lyon
- The Women, Lifestyle and Health cohort study
- The Collaborative Study Group on Hormones and Cancer
- International Collaboration of Epidemiological Studies of Cervical Cancer

Back to map of international network.

GENERALE
The Tromsø Study is participating in GENERALE – a European multicentre prospective epidemiological study of genetic and behavioural/environmental risk factors for ageing-related atherosclerosis and cardiovascular events. GENERALE is focusing on antioxidative defences that deteriorate with ageing in population cohorts with DNA collected from six European countries. At the time the project was initiated, only 50 polymorphisms of clinical relevance for cardiovascular disease were known. GENERALE is funded by the EU Biomed 5 Programme and is being led by prof. Salonen at Kuopio University. Reporting is scheduled to start during 2003. Read more.

The SCORE project
The Finnmark Study has contributed to a European project, pooling 200,000 men and women in 12 European cohort studies into a common database, assessing risk factors and the absolute risk of fatal cardiovascular disease. SCORE (Systematic coronary risk evaluation) was established as a European Concerted Action project and has been funded under the EU Biomed Programme. Based on this database a multivariate absolute risk equation has been developed. In the form of a simple chart and PC programme, it will guide clinicians in whom to target with life style interventions and whom to treat pharmacologically to prevent cardiovascular disease most cost effectively. The first publication from the project has recently been submitted. Read more.

The EPIC study at IARC, Lyon
The main international collaboration is in the European collaboration: “European Prospective Investigation into Nutrition and Cancer” – EPIC, consisting of 23 centres in Europe with a central unit in Lyon. EPIC is the largest study on diet and health ever undertaken. Altogether 515,000 people in ten European countries are enrolled into the cohort. NOWAC was included in 1998. The contribution from NOWAC consists of questionnaire information from altogether 37,000 women born 1943-57. As part of the EPIC calibration study, we undertook 24-hour dietary recall interviews in a random sample of about 1,800 women from NOWAC.
In the Norwegian part of the EPIC study we collected 12,000 blood samples by mail. The samples were separated into “buffy-coat” and plasma. Half of the blood samples collected among women in NOWAC were sent to the common analytical EPIC centre at WHO’s International Agency of Cancer Research (IARC) in Lyon. The bio-bank of EPIC contains blood samples from about 400,000 men and women collected for the gene-environment analysis mainly of diet and cancer. We participate in four EPIC working groups throughout Europe. In addition the incorporation into EPIC has opened the door to further development of scientific co-operation with single groups in EPIC. One of these is “Etude Epidemiologique aupres de femmes de l'Education Nationale” – E3N at INSERM in Paris. Read more.

The Women, Lifestyle and Health cohort study
Our collaboration with the Department of Medical Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, dates back to 1984, through two case-control studies and the present cohort study “The Women, Lifestyle and Health cohort study” - WLH. This database is created with information from approximately 56,000 Norwegian women dating from NOWAC, and nearly 50,000 Swedish women. Read more.

The Collaborative Study Group on Hormones and Cancer
The Collaborative Study Group on Hormones and Cancer is a worldwide collaboration localized in Oxford. The collaboration includes almost all studies worldwide on hormones and breast cancer. We are full participants in this collaborative effort through our case-control data. Read more.

International Collaboration of Epidemiological Studies of Cervical Cancer: A collaborative reanalysis of individual data on 16,563 women with cervical cancer and 33,542 women without cervical cancer from 24 epidemiological studies. Read more.