Risk Factors Associated with Pancreatic Cancer in the UK Biobank Cohort

Abstract

Evidence on pancreatic cancer (PaCa) risk factors from large population-based cohort studies is limited. This study investigated the PaCa risk factors and the population attributable fraction (PAF) of modifiable risk factors in the UK Biobank cohort. The UK Biobank is a prospective cohort consisting of 502,413 participants with a mean follow-up time of 8.2 years. A binomial generalized linear regression model was used to calculate relative risks for PaCa risk factors. PAF was calculated to estimate the proportional reduction in PaCa if modifiable risk factors were to be eliminated. A total of 728 (0.14%) PaCa incident cases and 412,922 (82.19%) non-PaCa controls were analyzed. The non-modifiable risk factors included age and gender. The modifiable risk factors were cigarette smoking, overweight and obesity, increased waist circumstance, abdominal obesity, Diabetic Mellitus (DM), and pancreatitis history. The PAF suggested that eliminating smoking and obesity can contribute around a 16% reduction in PaCa cases while avoiding abdominal obesity can eliminate PaCa cases by 22%. Preventing pancreatitis and DM could potentially reduce PaCa cases by 1% and 6%, respectively. This study has identified modifiable and non-modifiable PaCa risk factors in the UK population. The PAF of modifiable risk factors can be applied to inform PaCa prevention programs.

Association Between Device-Measured Physical Activity and Incident Heart Failure: A Prospective Cohort Study of 94 739 UK Biobank Participants

“…12 Because of the sensitive nature of the data collected for this study, requests to access the data set from qualified researchers may be sent to the UK Biobank. 12 Device-Measured PA Axivity AX3 wrist-worn triaxial accelerometers were used to collect objective PA measurements from 103 686 UK Biobank participants between 2013 and 2015. Participants who provided an email address to UK Biobank were invited at random.…”

“…The study protocol is available online. 12 This work was conducted under the UK Biobank application No. 7155.…”

Elevated Glycated Haemoglobin (HbA1c) Is Associated with an Increased Risk of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: A UK Biobank Cohort Study

“…Identifying modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors for PDAC within UKBB emphasises the importance of addressing those with the potential to reduce the risk of PDAC if adjusted accordingly [ 26 ]. Modifiable covariables and potential confounders that were measured at baseline were selected for inclusion in the models based on their established association with PDAC, and included: obesity (measured by Body Mass Index (BMI) [ 28 ]), weight change in the previous 12 months [ 33 ], tobacco smoking (never, ex, current and <20/day, and current and ≥20/day) [ 34 , 35 ], alcohol intake (never, special occasions, one to three times/month, one to two times/week, three to four times/week, daily) [ 36 , 37 ] and processed meat consumption (never, less than once a week, once a week, two to four times per week, and five or more times per week) [ 38 ].…”

“…UKBB is updated periodically using a range of resources such as cancer registries to identify incident disease conditions. There is already an established association between both DM [ 26 ] and elevated HbA1c [ 27 ] and subsequent PDAC within the UKBB population. Ke et al [ 26 ] noted a history of DM among 728 incident PDAC patients more than doubled the risk of incident PDAC when compared to a control group without neoplasms or nonmalignant neoplasms with a risk ratio (RR, 95% CI) of 2.08 (1.64–2.63).…”

“…There is already an established association between both DM [ 26 ] and elevated HbA1c [ 27 ] and subsequent PDAC within the UKBB population. Ke et al [ 26 ] noted a history of DM among 728 incident PDAC patients more than doubled the risk of incident PDAC when compared to a control group without neoplasms or nonmalignant neoplasms with a risk ratio (RR, 95% CI) of 2.08 (1.64–2.63). Rentsch et al [ 27 ] looked at the risk of incident PDAC based on HbA1c over a median 7.1 years (IQR 6.4–7.7 years) follow-up after adjusting for age, sex (except sex-specific cancers), ethnicity, deprivation, BMI, physical activity, cardiovascular and DM diagnoses at baseline, smoking status and alcohol consumption.…”