Associations of Height With the Risks of Colorectal and Endometrial Cancer in Persons With Lynch Syndrome

Abstract

Persons with Lynch syndrome (LS – carrying a pathogenic mutation in a DNA mismatch repair gene) have an increased colorectal cancer (CRC) and endometrial cancer (EC) risk. A high reported variability in cancer risk suggests the existence of factors that modify cancer risk for LS. We aimed to investigate the association between height and CRC and EC for persons with LS using two large studies. Information of 1,213 men and 1,636 women with LS from the Colon Cancer Family Registry (1998-2007) and the GEOLynch cohort study (2006-2017) was harmonized. We used weighted Cox proportional hazard regression models with age on the time-axis to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for each 5 cm increment in self-reported height. CRC was diagnosed in 947 persons during 65,369 person-years of observation and 171 women were diagnosed with EC during 39,227 person-years of observation. Height was not associated with CRC for men (HR 1.00 per 5 cm, 95%CI: 0.91, 1.11) or women (HR 1.01 per 5 cm, 95%CI: 0.92, 1.11). Nor was height associated with EC (HR 1.08 per 5 cm, 95%CI: 0.94, 1.24). Hence, we observed no evidence for an association of height with either CRC or EC for persons with LS.

Body Mass Index, sex, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug medications, smoking and alcohol are differentially associated with World Health Organisation criteria and colorectal cancer risk in people with Serrated Polyposis Syndrome: an Australian case-control study

“…Height was positively associated with SPS in our study, consistent with a postulated effect on cancer development due to the association with a person’s height and the number of body cells, genetic make-up, and exposure to hormone and growth factors during developmental stages [ 31 ]. Height was also identified in a 2018 Meta-analysis of three prospective case-control studies as a risk factor for serrated polyps [ 32 ].…”