The Janus material

Last updated:

The Janus repository contains samples from 318 628 donors.  As of December 31st 2021, 112 939 cancer cases are registered among the Janus donors.  

 

The Janus samples originate from three different sources. In the 1970s–90s, a number of population-based health surveys for monitoring risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, were performed in Norway. About 90% of the Janus donors were recruited from five of those health surveys. Approximately 10% of the Janus cohort members origin from Red Cross blood donors living in Oslo and the surroundings. A small proportion of the samples (n ∼ 3 500) in the cohort are from donors that entered the cohort with a pre-diagnostic sample at one time point, were later diagnosed with cancer and donated a new diagnostic sample. For this subgroup, both pre-and post-diagnostic samples from the same individuals are available. See the table below for details. 

 

Characteristics Men Women Total
Total donors included in the cohort 166137 152491 318628
Average age at enrolment (years) 41 41 -
Number of individuals by sample origin      

- Health Examination donors (Oslo 1, The Age 40 program Oslo, The Norwegian Counties Study, The Age 40 program all counties and TROFINN)

146222 134898 281120
- Red Cross Blood donors 15079 13811 28890
Number of donors by number of sample collection time points      
Health examination donors      
                      1 118707 108067 226774
                      2 17524 16082 33606
                      3 9457 10117 19574
                      4 534 632 1166
Red Cross Blood donors      
                      1 5213 5971 11184
                      2 3066 2940 6006
                      3 1929 1620 3549
                     4 4871 3280 8151

 

 

Geographical distribution of sample collection in the Janus Serum Bank

 

From: Cohort Profile: The Janus Serum Bank Cohort in Norway Int J Epidemiol. 2016;46(2):403-404g. doi:10.1093/ije/dyw027 Int J Epidemiol 

 

The average age at enrollment for all Janus donors is 41 years. The largest proportion of samples are collected from persons that participated in health examinations in their 40s. In the Red Cross blood donor group
the average age is 34.

See the table for details on age at first sample donation.

 

 

Age at
first sample

All
Janus donors

%

Health examination
donors

%

Red Cross
blood donors

%

Men 0-29

12 916

7,81

5 642

3,74

7 207

41,33

  30-39

26 986

16,32

21 808

14,46

5 438

31,18

  40-49

117 085

70,79

116 317

77,14

3 075

17,63

  50-59

3 308

2,00

2 107

1,4 

1 524

8,74

  60+

5 095

3,59

4 905

3,25

194

1,11

Total men

 

 

165 390

 

150 779

 

17 438

 
Women 0-29

11 774

7,77

5 033

3,64

6 682

45,83

  30-39

25 475

16,81

21 867

15,81

3 786

25,97

  40-49

106 276

70,12

104 775

75,75

2 579

17,69

  50-59

2 589

1,71

1 377

0,96

1 341

9,2 

  60+

5 447

3,59

5 258

3,78

193

1,32

Total Women  

151 561

 

138 310

 

14 581

 
               
               

 

 

 

Cancer statistics

Number of cancer cases 

Here can an overview of the number of cancer cases by disease and gender be downloaded. The follow-up is from 1953-2021. 

Number of cancer cases by disease and gender 1953-2021 (pdf)

Most common cancer types

Here is  the most common cancer types for males and females in the Janus Serum Bank:

 

Most_common_men_en.jpg

Most_common_women_en.jpg

Number of cases as of 31.12.2021

Age-period-cohort model of the Janus cohort members

Here can you download the age-period-cohort model of the Janus cohort members. The table is modified from Langseth et al, International Journal of Epidemiology, 2017, Vol. 46, No. 2.