| 1. |
- Agudo, Antonio, et al.
(author)
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Hemochromatosis (HFE) gene mutations and risk of gastric cancer in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study
- 2013
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In: Carcinogenesis. - : Oxford University Press. - 0143-3334 .- 1460-2180. ; 34:6, s. 1244-1250
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) is a strong risk factor for hepatocellular cancer, and mutations in the HFE gene associated with HH and iron overload may be related to other tumors, but no studies have been reported for gastric cancer (GC). A nested case-control study was conducted within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), including 365 incident gastric adenocarcinoma and 1284 controls matched by center, sex, age and date of blood collection. Genotype analysis was performed for two functional polymorphisms (C282Y/rs1800562 and H63D/rs1799945) and seven tagSNPs of the HFE genomic region. Association with all gastric adenocarcinoma, and according to anatomical localization and histological subtype, was assessed by means of the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) estimated by unconditional logistic regression adjusted for the matching variables. We observed a significant association for H63D with OR (per rare allele) of 1.32 (CI = 1.03-1.69). In subgroup analyses, the association was stronger for non-cardia anatomical subsite (OR = 1.60, CI = 1.16-2.21) and intestinal histological subtype (OR = 1.82, CI = 1.27-2.62). Among intestinal cases, two tagSNPs (rs1572982 and rs6918586) also showed a significant association that disappeared after adjustment for H63D. No association with tumors located in the cardia or with diffuse subtype was found for any of the nine SNPs analyzed. Our results suggest that H63D variant in HFE gene seems to be associated with GC risk of the non-cardia region and intestinal type, possibly due to its association with iron overload although a role for other mechanisms cannot be entirely ruled out.
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| 2. |
- Agudo, Antonio, et al.
(author)
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Impact of Cigarette Smoking on Cancer Risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study
- 2012
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In: Journal of Clinical Oncology. - 0732-183X .- 1527-7755. ; 30:36, s. 4550-4557
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Purpose Our aim was to assess the impact of cigarette smoking on the risk of the tumors classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as causally associated with smoking, referred to as tobacco-related cancers (TRC). Methods The study population included 441,211 participants (133,018 men and 308,193 women) from the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition. We investigated 14,563 participants who developed a TRC during an average follow-up of 11 years. The impact of smoking cigarettes on cancer risk was assessed by the population attributable fraction (AF(p)), calculated using the adjusted hazard ratios and 95% CI for current and former smokers, plus either the prevalence of smoking among cancer cases or estimates from surveys in representative samples of the population in each country. Results The proportion of all TRC attributable to cigarette smoking was 34.9% (95% CI, 32.5 to 37.4) using the smoking prevalence among cases and 36.2% (95% CI, 33.7 to 38.6) using the smoking prevalence from the population. The AF(p) were above 80% for cancers of the lung and larynx, between 20% and 50% for most respiratory and digestive cancers and tumors from the lower urinary tract, and below 20% for the remaining TRC. Conclusion Using data on cancer incidence for 2008 and our AF(p) estimates, about 270,000 new cancer diagnoses per year can be considered attributable to cigarette smoking in the eight European countries with available data for both men and women (Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Denmark).
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| 3. |
- Aleksandrova, Krasimira, et al.
(author)
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Combined impact of healthy lifestyle factors on colorectal cancer : a large European cohort study
- 2014
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In: BMC Medicine. - : BioMed Central. - 1741-7015. ; 12:1, s. 168-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Excess body weight, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and certain dietary factors are individually related to colorectal cancer (CRC) risk; however, little is known about their joint effects. The aim of this study was to develop a healthy lifestyle index (HLI) composed of five potentially modifiable lifestyle factors - healthy weight, physical activity, non-smoking, limited alcohol consumption and a healthy diet, and to explore the association of this index with CRC incidence using data collected within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. METHODS: In the EPIC cohort, a total of 347,237 men and women, 25- to 70-years old, provided dietary and lifestyle information at study baseline (1992 to 2000). Over a median follow-up time of 12 years, 3,759 incident CRC cases were identified. The association between a HLI and CRC risk was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression models and population attributable risks (PARs) have been calculated. RESULTS: After accounting for study centre, age, sex and education, compared with 0 or 1 healthy lifestyle factors, the hazard ratio (HR) for CRC was 0.87 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.44 to 0.77) for two factors, 0.79 (95% CI: 0.70 to 0.89) for three factors, 0.66 (95% CI: 0.58 to 0.75) for four factors and 0.63 (95% CI: 0.54 to 0.74) for five factors; P-trend <0.0001. The associations were present for both colon and rectal cancers, HRs, 0.61 (95% CI: 0.50 to 0.74; P for trend <0.0001) for colon cancer and 0.68 (95% CI: 0.53 to 0.88; P-trend <0.0001) for rectal cancer, respectively (P-difference by cancer sub-site = 0.10). Overall, 16% of the new CRC cases (22% in men and 11% in women) were attributable to not adhering to a combination of all five healthy lifestyle behaviours included in the index. CONCLUSIONS: Combined lifestyle factors are associated with a lower incidence of CRC in European populations characterized by western lifestyles. Prevention strategies considering complex targeting of multiple lifestyle factors may provide practical means for improved CRC prevention.
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| 4. |
- Aleksandrova, Krasimira, et al.
(author)
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Inflammatory and metabolic biomarkers and risk of liver and bilary tract cancer
- 2014
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In: Hepatology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0270-9139 .- 1527-3350. ; 60:3, s. 858-871
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Obesity and associated metabolic disorders have been implicated in liver carcinogenesis; however there is little data on the role of obesity-related biomarkers on liver cancer risk. We studied prospectively the association of inflammatory and metabolic biomarkers with risks of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), intra-hepatic bile duct (IBD) and gallbladder and bilary tract cancers outside of the liver (GBTC) in a nested case-control study within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Over an average of 7.7 years, 296 participants developed HCC (n=125), GBTC (n=137) or IBD (n=34). Using risk set sampling, controls were selected in a 2:1 ratio and matched for recruitment center, age, sex, fasting status, time of blood collection. Baseline serum concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-peptide, total, high-molecular-weight (HMW) adiponectin, leptin, fetuin-a, and glutamatdehydrogenase (GLDH) were measured and incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI-s) estimated using conditional logistic regression. After adjustment for lifestyle factors, diabetes, hepatitis infection and adiposity measures, higher concentrations of CRP, IL-6, C-peptide and non-HMW adiponectin were associated with higher risk of HCC (IRR per doubling of concentrations = 1.22; 95%CI = 1.02-1.46, P=0.03; 1.90; 95%CI = 1.30-2.77, P=0.001; 2.25; 95%CI = 1.43-3.54, P=0.0005 and 2.09; 95%CI = 1.19-3.67, P=0.01, respectively). CRP was associated also with risk of GBTC (IRR = 1.22; 95%CI = 1.05-1.42, P=0.01). GLDH was associated with risks of HCC (IRR = 1.62; 95%CI = 1.25-2.11, P=0.0003) and IBD (IRR = 10.5; 95%CI = 2.20-50.90, P=0.003). The continuous net reclassification index was 0.63 for CRP, IL-6, C-peptide and non-HMW adiponectin, and 0.46 for GLDH indicating good predictive ability of these biomarkers. Conclusion: Elevated levels of biomarkers of inflammation and hyperinsulinemia are associated with a higher risk of HCC, independent of obesity and established liver cancer risk factors.
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| 5. |
- Berndt, Sonja I., et al.
(author)
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Genome-wide association study identifies multiple risk loci for chronic lymphocytic leukemia
- 2013
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 45:8, s. 868-U202
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have previously identified 13 loci associated with risk of chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL). To identify additional CLL susceptibility loci, we conducted the largest meta-analysis for CLL thus far, including four GWAS with a total of 3,100 individuals with CLL (cases) and 7,667 controls. In the meta-analysis, we identified ten independent associated SNPs in nine new loci at 10q23.31 (ACTA2 or FAS (ACTA2/FAS), P = 1.22 x 10(-14)), 18q21.33 (BCL2, P = 7.76 x 10(-11)), 11p15.5 (C11orf21, P = 2.15 x 10(-10)), 4q25 (LEF1, P = 4.24 x 10(-10)), 2q33.1 (CASP10 or CASP8 (CASP10/CASP8), P = 2.50 x 10(-9)), 9p21.3 (CDKN2B-AS1, P = 1.27 x 10(-8)), 18q21.32 (PMAIP1, P = 2.51 x 10(-8)), 15q15.1 (BMF, P = 2.71 x 10(-10)) and 2p22.2 (QPCT, P = 1.68 x 10(-8)), as well as an independent signal at an established locus (2q13, ACOXL, P = 2.08 x 10(-18)). We also found evidence for two additional promising loci below genome-wide significance at 8q22.3 (ODF1, P = 5.40 x 10(-8)) and 5p15.33 (TERT, P = 1.92 x 10(-7)). Although further studies are required, the proximity of several of these loci to genes involved in apoptosis suggests a plausible underlying biological mechanism.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Campa, Daniele, et al.
(author)
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A genome-wide "pleiotropy scan'' does not identify new susceptibility loci for estrogen receptor negative breast cancer
- 2014
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 9:2, s. e85955-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Approximately 15-30% of all breast cancer tumors are estrogen receptor negative (ER-). Compared with ER- positive (ER+) disease they have an earlier age at onset and worse prognosis. Despite the vast number of risk variants identified for numerous cancer types, only seven loci have been unambiguously identified for ER- negative breast cancer. With the aim of identifying new susceptibility SNPs for this disease we performed a pleiotropic genome-wide association study (GWAS). We selected 3079 SNPs associated with a human complex trait or disease at genome-wide significance level (P<5x10(-8)) to perform a secondary analysis of an ER- negative GWAS from the National Cancer Institute's Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium (BPC3), including 1998 cases and 2305 controls from prospective studies. We then tested the top ten associations (i.e. with the lowest P-values) using three additional populations with a total sample size of 3509 ER+ cases, 2543 ER- cases and 7031 healthy controls. None of the 3079 selected variants in the BPC3 ER- GWAS were significant at the adjusted threshold. 186 variants were associated with ER- breast cancer risk at a conventional threshold of P<0.05, with P-values ranging from 0.049 to 2.3 x 10(-4). None of the variants reached statistical significance in the replication phase. In conclusion, this study did not identify any novel susceptibility loci for ER-breast cancer using a "pleiotropic approach''.
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| 8. |
- Campa, Daniele, et al.
(author)
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Leukocyte telomere length in relation to pancreatic cancer risk: a prospective study.
- 2014
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In: Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention. - 1538-7755 .- 1055-9965. ; 23:11, s. 2447-2454
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Several studies have examined leukocyte telomere length (LTL) as a possible predictor for cancer at various organ sites. The hypothesis originally motivating many of these studies was that shorter telomeres would be associated with an increase in cancer risk, the results of epidemiologic studies have been inconsistent, however, and suggested positive, negative, or null associations. Two studies have addressed the association of LTL in relation to pancreatic cancer risk and the results are contrasting. Methods: we measured LTL in a prospective study of 331 pancreatic cancer cases and 331 controls in the context of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Results: We observed that the mean LTL was higher in cases (0.59±0.20) than in controls (0.57±0.17), although this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.07), and a basic logistic regression model showed no association of LTL with pancreas cancer risk. When adjusting for levels of HbA1c and C-Peptide, however, there was a weakly positive association between longer LTL and pancreatic cancer risk , OR=1.13 (1.01-1.27). Additional analyses by cubic spline regression suggested a possible non-linear relationship between RTL and pancreatic cancer risk (P=0.022), with a statistically non-significant increase in risk at very low LTL, as well as a significant increase at high LTL. Conclusion: Taken together, the results from our study do not support LTL as a uniform and strong predictor of pancreatic cancer. Impact: The results of this manuscript can provide insights into telomere dynamics and highlight the complex relationship between LTL and pancreatic cancer risk.
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| 9. |
- Castellsague, Xavier, et al.
(author)
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Prospective seroepidemiologic study on the role of Human Papillomavirus and other infections in cervical carcinogenesis: Evidence from the EPIC cohort
- 2014
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In: International Journal of Cancer. - : Wiley. - 0020-7136 .- 1097-0215. ; 135:2, s. 440-452
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To evaluate prospectively the association between serological markers of selected infections, including HPV, and risk of developing cervical cancer (CC) and precancer, we performed a nested case-control study within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study that included 184 cases of invasive CC (ICC), 425 cases of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 3 or carcinoma in situ (CIS), and 1,218 matched control women. At enrollment participants completed lifestyle questionnaires and provided sera. Subjects were followed-up for a median of 9 years. Immunoassays were used to detect serum antibodies to Human Herpes Virus 2 (HHV-2), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Chlamydia pneumoniae, L1 proteins of mucosal and cutaneous HPV types, E6/E7 proteins of HPV16/18, as well as to four polyomaviruses. Adjusted odds ratios (OR) [and 95% confidence intervals (CI)] for CIN3/CIS and ICC risk were respectively: 1.6 (1.2-2.0) and 1.8 (1.1-2.7) for L1 seropositivity to any mucosal HPV type, 1.0 (0.4-2.4) and 7.4 (2.8-19.7) for E6 seropositivity to HPV16/18, 1.3 (0.9-1.9) and 2.3 (1.3-4.1) for CT seropositivity, and 1.4 (1.0-2.0) and 1.5 (0.9-2.6) for HHV-2 seropositivity. The highest OR for ICC was observed for HPV16 E6 seropositivity [OR=10.2 (3.3-31.1)]. Increasing number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was associated with increasing risk. Non-STIs were not associated with CC risk. In conclusion, this large prospective study confirms the important role of HPV and a possible contribution of CT and HHV-2 in cervical carcinogenesis. It further identifies HPV16 E6 seropositivity as the strongest marker to predict ICC well before disease development. What's New? Limited data are available from prospective studies concerning the role of past exposure to human papillomavirus (HPV) and other infections in cervical carcinogenesis. This study assessed associations between cervical cancer and pre-cancer and serological markers of exposure to mucosal and cutaneous HPVs, Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Chlamydia pneumonia, human herpes virus-2 (HHV-2), and polyomaviruses using a nested case-control design within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. Associations were found for mucosal HPVs, CT, and HHV-2. A greater number of sexually transmitted diseases further raised the risk of cervical cancer.
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| 10. |
- Chuang, Shu-Chun, et al.
(author)
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Circulating Biomarkers of Tryptophan and the Kynurenine Pathway and Lung Cancer Risk
- 2014
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In: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. - 1055-9965 .- 1538-7755. ; 23:3, s. 461-468
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Imbalances in tryptophan metabolism have been linked to cancer-related immune escape and implicated in several cancers, including lung cancer. Methods: We conducted a nested case-control study within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer andNutrition (EPIC) that included 893 incident lung cancer cases and 1,748matched controls. Circulating levels of tryptophan and six of its metabolites were measured and evaluated in relation to lung cancer risk. Results: Tryptophan (P-trend = 2 Chi 10(-5)) and the kynurenine/ tryptophan ratio (KTR; P-trend 4 Chi 10(-5)) were associated with lung cancer risk overall after adjusting for established risk factors. The ORs comparing the fifth and first quintiles (OR5th (vs. 1st)) were 0.52 [ 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.37-0.74] for tryptophan and 1.74 (95% CI, 1.24-2.45) for KTR. After adjusting for plasma methionine (available fromprevious work, which was strongly correlated with tryptophan), the associations of tryptophan (adjusted P-trend 0.13) and KTR (P-trend = 0.009) were substantially attenuated. KTR was positively associated with squamous cell carcinoma, the OR5th vs. 1st being 2.83 (95% CI, 1.62-4.94, P-trend -3 Chi 10(-5)) that was only marginally affected by adjusting for methionine. Conclusions: This study indicates that biomarkers of tryptophan metabolism are associated with subsequent lung cancer risk. Although this result would seem consistent with the immune system having a role in lung cancer development, the overall associations were dependent on methionine, and further studies are warranted to further elucidate the importance of these metabolites in lung cancer etiology. Impact: This is the first prospective study investigating the tryptophan pathway in relation to lung cancer risk.
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