The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition

The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) is a prospective cohort with more than 521,000 study participants enrolled from 23 centres in 10 western European countries. Detailed information on diet, lifestyle characteristics, anthropometric measurements, and medical history was collected at recruitment (1992-1999).

Biological samples including plasma, serum, leukocytes, and erythrocytes were also collected at baseline from 387,889 individuals and are stored at the International Agency for Research on Cancer – World Health Organization (IARC-WHO) and mirrored at EPIC collaborating centres. Overall, the EPIC biorepositories host more than 9 million aliquots, constituting one of the largest biobanks in the world for biochemical and genetic investigations on cancer and other chronic diseases. Follow-up measures of lifestyle exposures have been collected and will be centralized at IARC in 2016.

Last update – 25/04/2017

Types General population-based cohort
Participant Types No diagnosis
Countries Denmark|France|Germany|Greece|Italy|Netherlands|Norway|Spain|Sweden|United Kingdom
Genders Male and Female
Sample sizes 500,000+
Ages
Brain related measures
Funtional rating
Anthropometric Blood pressure|Height|Hip circumference|Waist circumference|Weight
Physical Reproductive
Biological samples Blood
Genotyping Gene screening
Brain imaging
Brain banking Consent for brain donation
Lifestyle Alcohol|Dietary habits|Physical activity|Smoking
Socio-economic Education|Income and finances|Marital status|Occupation and employment
Health service utilisation Formal health and social care service utilisation including private care
Institute names Multiple
Current Sample Sizes 500,000+

age at recruitment 
last updated
recruitment period 1992-99
estimated current sample size number value
cohort acronym EPIC
start date 1992-99
pi Professor Elio Riboli, Dr Marc Gunter and Dr Paul Brennan
website http://epic.iarc.fr/
contact details IARC,
150 Cours Albert Thomas,
69372 Lyon
CEDEX 08,
France
abstract  EPIC is a prospective cohort with 521,000 participants which began in 1992. Detailed information on diet, lifestyle characteristics, anthropometric measurements, medical history and biological samples were collected at recruitment.
funders  World Health Organisation (WHO)
contact email [email protected]
contact phone number 33 (0)4 72 73 84 85
estimated current sample size
sample sizes 521000