1. ¹Department of Epidemiology, NUTRIM, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands
2. ²Department of Urology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, PO Box 9101, Nijmegen 6500 HB, The Netherlands
3. ³Department of Pathology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, PO Box 9101, Nijmegen 6500 HB, The Netherlands
4. ⁴Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, PO Box 9101, Nijmegen 6500 HB, The Netherlands
5. ⁵Department of Food and Chemical Risk Analysis, TNO Nutrition and Food Research, PO Box 360, Zeist 3700 AJ, The Netherlands

Correspondence: Dr LJ Schouten, E-mail: LJ.Schouten@epid.unimaas.nl

⁶Current address: Department of Clinical Chemistry, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, PO Box 9101, Nijmegen 6500 HB, The Netherlands.

Received 24 April 2006; Revised 19 June 2006; Accepted 23 June 2006.

Abstract

We investigated whether smoking is associated with mutations in the Von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) gene in 337 cases of sporadic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) among 120 852 people followed for 11.3 years; the findings suggest that smoking causes RCC independently of VHL gene mutations.