Sammanfattning
The Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) study is a population based cohort study. It is
primarily a questionnaire based survey that includes almost 172 000 women. Among these, 50 000
have contributed blood samples for biomarker measurements and gene expression analysis. The
study biobank also includes breast tissue samples from breast cancer cases and healthy controls.
The combination of data sources renders the NOWAC study unique.
The women are randomly drawn from the Central Population Register database and were 30–70
years old at first survey. The data collection started in 1991 and is still on-going. The aim is to find
potential associations between women’s life style, including drug use, and cancer risk. The study is
suited for cross-sectional analyses as well as follow-up studies through linking to different health
registries, for instance to investigate cancer morbidity and mortality. Several such linkages have
been performed.
NOWAC is since 1998 included in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition
(EPIC). This is a collaboration of researchers in ten European countries.
This article presents the NOWAC study and some of its results so far.