Background and Aims Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a heterogeneous disease that can develop via several pathways. Different CRC subtypes, identified based on tumor markers, have been proposed to reflect ...these pathways. We evaluated the significance of these previously proposed classifications to survival. Methods Participants in the population-based Seattle Colon Cancer Family Registry were diagnosed with invasive CRC from 1998 through 2007 in western Washington State (N = 2706), and followed for survival through 2012. Tumor samples were collected from 2050 participants and classified into 5 subtypes based on combinations of tumor markers: type 1 (microsatellite instability MSI–high, CpG island methylator phenotype CIMP –positive, positive for BRAF mutation, negative for KRAS mutation); type 2 (microsatellite stable MSS or MSI-low, CIMP-positive, positive for BRAF mutation, negative for KRAS mutation); type 3 (MSS or MSI low, non-CIMP, negative for BRAF mutation, positive for KRAS mutation); type 4 (MSS or MSI-low, non-CIMP, negative for mutations in BRAF and KRAS ); and type 5 (MSI-high, non-CIMP, negative for mutations in BRAF and KRAS ). Multiple imputation was used to impute tumor markers for those missing data on 1–3 markers. We used Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations of subtypes with disease-specific and overall mortality, adjusting for age, sex, body mass, diagnosis year, and smoking history. Results Compared with participants with type 4 tumors (the most predominant), participants with type 2 tumors had the highest disease-specific mortality (HR = 2.20, 95% CI: 1.47–3.31); subjects with type 3 tumors also had higher disease-specific mortality (HR = 1.32, 95% CI: 1.07–1.63). Subjects with type 5 tumors had the lowest disease-specific mortality (HR = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.14–0.66). Associations with overall mortality were similar to those with disease-specific mortality. Conclusions Based on a large, population-based study, CRC subtypes, defined by proposed etiologic pathways, are associated with marked differences in survival. These findings indicate the clinical importance of studies into the molecular heterogeneity of CRC.
The heterogeneity among colorectal tumors is probably due to differences in developmental pathways and might associate with patient survival times. We studied the relationship among markers of ...different subtypes of colorectal tumors and patient survival.
We pooled data from 7 observational studies, comprising 5010 patients with colorectal cancer. All the studies collected information on microsatellite instability (MSI), CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP), and mutations in KRAS and BRAF in tumors. Tumors with complete marker data were classified as type 1 (MSI-high, CIMP-positive, with pathogenic mutations in BRAF but not KRAS), type 2 (not MSI-high, CIMP-positive, with pathogenic mutations in BRAF but not KRAS), type 3 (not MSI-high or CIMP, with pathogenic mutations in KRAS but not BRAF), type 4 (not MSI-high or CIMP, no pathogenic mutations in BRAF or KRAS), or type 5 (MSI-high, no CIMP, no pathogenic mutations in BRAF or KRAS). We used Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations of these subtypes and tumor markers with disease-specific survival (DSS) and overall survival times, adjusting for age, sex, stage at diagnosis, and study population.
Patients with type 2 colorectal tumors had significantly shorter time of DSS than patients with type 4 tumors (HRDSS 1.66; 95% CI 1.33–2.07), regardless of sex, age, or stage at diagnosis. Patients without MSI-high tumors had significantly shorter time of DSS compared with patients with MSI-high tumors (HRDSS 0.42; 95% CI 0.27–0.64), regardless of other tumor markers or stage, or patient sex or age.
In a pooled analysis of data from 7 observational studies of patients with colorectal cancer, we found that tumor subtypes, defined by combinations of 4 common tumor markers, were associated with differences in survival time. Colorectal tumor subtypes might therefore be used in determining patients’ prognoses.
Sleep apnea and subsequent cancer incidence Sillah, Arthur; Watson, Nathaniel F.; Schwartz, Stephen M. ...
Cancer causes & control,
10/2018, Letnik:
29, Številka:
10
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Purpose
In vitro and animal models suggest that the physiological effects of sleep apnea could contribute to cancer risk, yet epidemiologic studies have been inconsistent.
Methods
We identified a ...cohort of adults diagnosed with sleep apnea between 2005 and 2014 using regional administrative databases. Linking this cohort to a population-based cancer registry, we identified first incident cancers diagnosed after sleep apnea diagnosis through 2015. We calculated age–sex standardized cancer incidence ratios (SIRs) to compare the observed number of cancers among those with sleep apnea with expected population estimates over a comparable period.
Results
Among 34,402 individuals with sleep apnea, 1,575 first incident cancers were diagnosed during follow-up (mean ± SD; 5.3 ± 2.0 years). Compared to the general population, cancer incidence (SIR 1.26, 95% CI 1.20–1.32) was elevated among sleep apnea patients. We observed significantly elevated incidence for kidney (SIR 2.24, 95% CI 1.82–2.72), melanoma (SIR 1.71, 95% CI 1.42–2.03), breast (SIR 1.43, 95% CI 1.76–2.00), and corpus uteri (SIR 2.80, 95% CI 2.24–2.47) while risk for lung (SIR 0.66, 95% CI 0.54–0.79) and colorectal cancer (SIR 0.71, 95% CI 0.56–0.89) was lower.
Conclusion
These findings suggest an elevated cancer burden, particularly at certain sites, among individuals with diagnosed sleep apnea. Results should be interpreted with caution due to unmeasured confounders (e.g., BMI, diabetes).
Protective associations of fruits, vegetables, and fiber intake with colorectal cancer risk have been shown in many, but not all epidemiologic studies. One possible reason for study heterogeneity is ...that dietary factors may have distinct effects by colorectal cancer molecular subtypes. Here, we investigate the association of fruit, vegetables, and fiber intake with four well-established colorectal cancer molecular subtypes separately and in combination. Nine observational studies including 9,592 cases with molecular subtypes for microsatellite instability (MSI), CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP), and somatic mutations in
and
genes, and 7,869 controls were analyzed. Both case-only logistic regression analyses and polytomous logistic regression analyses (with one control set and multiple case groups) were used. Higher fruit intake was associated with a trend toward decreased risk of
-mutated tumors OR 4th vs. 1st quartile = 0.82 (95% confidence interval, 0.65-1.04) but not
-wildtype tumors 1.09 (0.97-1.22);
difference as shown in case-only analysis = 0.02. This difference was observed in case-control studies and not in cohort studies. Compared with controls, higher fiber intake showed negative association with colorectal cancer risk for cases with microsatellite stable/MSI-low, CIMP-negative,
-wildtype, and
-wildtype tumors (
range from 0.03 to 3.4e-03), which is consistent with the traditional adenoma-colorectal cancer pathway. These negative associations were stronger compared with MSI-high, CIMP-positive,
-mutated, or
-mutated tumors, but the differences were not statistically significant. These inverse associations for fruit and fiber intake may explain, in part, inconsistent findings between fruit or fiber intake and colorectal cancer risk that have previously been reported. SIGNIFICANCE: These analyses by colorectal cancer molecular subtypes potentially explain the inconsistent findings between dietary fruit or fiber intake and overall colorectal cancer risk that have previously been reported.
Immunotherapy strategies targeting immune checkpoints such as the
and
(programmed cell death 1 ligand 1, PD-L1)/
(programmed cell death 1, PD-1) T-cell coreceptor pathways are revolutionising ...oncology. The approval of pembrolizumab use for solid tumours with high-level microsatellite instability or mismatch repair deficiency by the US Food and Drug Administration highlights promise of precision immuno-oncology. However, despite evidence indicating influences of exogenous and endogenous factors such as diet, nutrients, alcohol, smoking, obesity, lifestyle, environmental exposures and microbiome on tumour-immune interactions, integrative analyses of those factors and immunity lag behind. Immune cell analyses in the tumour microenvironment have not adequately been integrated into large-scale studies. Addressing this gap, the transdisciplinary field of molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE) offers research frameworks to integrate tumour immunology into population health sciences, and link the exposures and germline genetics (eg,
genotypes) to tumour and immune characteristics. Multilevel research using bioinformatics, in vivo pathology and omics (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) technologies is possible with use of tissue, peripheral blood circulating cells, cell-free plasma, stool, sputum, urine and other body fluids. This immunology-MPE model can synergise with experimental immunology, microbiology and systems biology. GI neoplasms represent exemplary diseases for the immunology-MPE model, given rich microbiota and immune tissues of intestines, and the well-established carcinogenic role of intestinal inflammation. Proof-of-principle studies on colorectal cancer provided insights into immunomodulating effects of aspirin, vitamin D, inflammatory diets and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. The integrated immunology-MPE model can contribute to better understanding of environment-tumour-immune interactions, and effective immunoprevention and immunotherapy strategies for precision medicine.
Abstract
Background
Sepsis disproportionately affects allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) recipients and is challenging to define. Clinical criteria that predict mortality and intensive ...care unit end-points in patients with suspected infections (SIs) are used in sepsis definitions, but their predictive value among immunocompromised populations is largely unknown. Here, we evaluate 3 criteria among allogeneic HCT recipients with SIs.
Methods
We evaluated Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS), quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA), and National Early Warning Score (NEWS) in relation to short-term mortality among recipients transplanted between September 2010 and July 2017. We used cut-points of ≥ 2 for qSOFA/SIRS and ≥ 7 for NEWS and restricted to first SI per hospital encounter during patients’ first 100 days posttransplant.
Results
Of the 880 recipients who experienced ≥ 1 SI, 58 (6.6%) died within 28 days and 22 (2.5%) within 10 days of an SI. In relation to 10-day mortality, SIRS was the most sensitive (91.3% 95% confidence interval {CI}, 72.0%–98.9%) but least specific (35.0% 95% CI, 32.6%–37.5%), whereas qSOFA was the most specific (90.5% 95% CI, 88.9%–91.9%) but least sensitive (47.8% 95% CI, 26.8%–69.4%). NEWS was moderately sensitive (78.3% 95% CI, 56.3%–92.5%) and specific (70.2% 95% CI, 67.8%–72.4%).
Conclusions
NEWS outperformed qSOFA and SIRS, but each criterion had low to moderate predictive accuracy, and the magnitude of the known limitations of qSOFA and SIRS was at least as large as in the general population. Our data suggest that population-specific criteria are needed for immunocompromised patients.
Sepsis disproportionately affects hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) recipients, but clinical criteria currently recommended in sepsis detection have not been validated in these patients. We demonstrate the limited predictive value of commonly used clinical criteria among HCT recipients with suspected infections.
AbstractIn vitro and animal models suggest that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) increases cancer risk. However, the impact of OSA severity on cancer risk is poorly understood.We conducted a case-cohort ...study (a variant of the case-control study design), nested in a cohort of patients with a clinical diagnosis of OSA. OSA patients diagnosed between 2005 and 2013 were linked to a population-based cancer registry to identify cancers diagnosed subsequent to OSA between 2005 and 2015. Medical records were reviewed for a representative sample of 1162 OSA patients from this cohort (including 24 with subsequent cancer), and for an additional 304 OSA patients diagnosed with cancer; information regarding OSA severity indicators, including apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) was abstracted from these records. Adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression were used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations of OSA severity indicators on cancer incidence.Compared with individuals in the lowest AHI category (5–14.9), indicating mild OSA, the adjusted HR (95% CI) for cancer incidence associated with having moderate (15–29.9) or severe (30+) OSA were 0.72 (0.40–1.29) and 0.87 (0.52–1.45) respectively. Associations with other severity indicators were not significantly associated with cancer. However, the proportion of patients with severe OSA (AHI ≥30) was consistently higher across numerous cancer sites relative to the subcohort, suggesting increased cancer risk relative to patients with less severe OSA.The absence of significant associations with OSA severity measures suggest that the underlying mechanisms deserve further investigation.
Carriers of germline biallelic pathogenic variants in the MUTYH gene have a high risk of colorectal cancer. We test 5649 colorectal cancers to evaluate the discriminatory potential of a tumor ...mutational signature specific to MUTYH for identifying biallelic carriers and classifying variants of uncertain clinical significance (VUS). Using a tumor and matched germline targeted multi-gene panel approach, our classifier identifies all biallelic MUTYH carriers and all known non-carriers in an independent test set of 3019 colorectal cancers (accuracy = 100% (95% confidence interval 99.87-100%)). All monoallelic MUTYH carriers are classified with the non-MUTYH carriers. The classifier provides evidence for a pathogenic classification for two VUS and a benign classification for five VUS. Somatic hotspot mutations KRAS p.G12C and PIK3CA p.Q546K are associated with colorectal cancers from biallelic MUTYH carriers compared with non-carriers (p = 2 × 10
and p = 6 × 10
, respectively). Here, we demonstrate the potential application of mutational signatures to tumor sequencing workflows to improve the identification of biallelic MUTYH carriers.
Epigenetic clocks have been associated with cancer risk in several observational studies. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether they play a causal role in cancer risk or if they act as a non-causal ...biomarker.
We conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study to examine the genetically predicted effects of epigenetic age acceleration as measured by HannumAge (nine single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)), Horvath Intrinsic Age (24 SNPs), PhenoAge (11 SNPs), and GrimAge (4 SNPs) on multiple cancers (i.e. breast, prostate, colorectal, ovarian and lung cancer). We obtained genome-wide association data for biological ageing from a meta-analysis (N = 34,710), and for cancer from the UK Biobank (N cases = 2671-13,879; N controls = 173,493-372,016), FinnGen (N cases = 719-8401; N controls = 74,685-174,006) and several international cancer genetic consortia (N cases = 11,348-122,977; N controls = 15,861-105,974). Main analyses were performed using multiplicative random effects inverse variance weighted (IVW) MR. Individual study estimates were pooled using fixed effect meta-analysis. Sensitivity analyses included MR-Egger, weighted median, weighted mode and Causal Analysis using Summary Effect Estimates (CAUSE) methods, which are robust to some of the assumptions of the IVW approach.
Meta-analysed IVW MR findings suggested that higher GrimAge acceleration increased the risk of colorectal cancer (OR = 1.12 per year increase in GrimAge acceleration, 95% CI 1.04-1.20, p = 0.002). The direction of the genetically predicted effects was consistent across main and sensitivity MR analyses. Among subtypes, the genetically predicted effect of GrimAge acceleration was greater for colon cancer (IVW OR = 1.15, 95% CI 1.09-1.21, p = 0.006), than rectal cancer (IVW OR = 1.05, 95% CI 0.97-1.13, p = 0.24). Results were less consistent for associations between other epigenetic clocks and cancers.
GrimAge acceleration may increase the risk of colorectal cancer. Findings for other clocks and cancers were inconsistent. Further work is required to investigate the potential mechanisms underlying the results.
FMB was supported by a Wellcome Trust PhD studentship in Molecular, Genetic and Lifecourse Epidemiology (224982/Z/22/Z which is part of grant 218495/Z/19/Z). KKT was supported by a Cancer Research UK (C18281/A29019) programme grant (the Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme) and by the Hellenic Republic's Operational Programme 'Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship & Innovation' (OΠΣ 5047228). PH was supported by Cancer Research UK (C18281/A29019). RMM was supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bristol and by a Cancer Research UK (C18281/A29019) programme grant (the Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme). RMM is a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator (NIHR202411). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. GDS and CLR were supported by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00011/1 and MC_UU_00011/5, respectively) and by a Cancer Research UK (C18281/A29019) programme grant (the Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme). REM was supported by an Alzheimer's Society project grant (AS-PG-19b-010) and NIH grant (U01 AG-18-018, PI: Steve Horvath). RCR is a de Pass Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow at the University of Bristol.