Serum ferritin and stomach cancer risk among a japanese population

Abstract

Using stored serum samples collected during from 1970 to 1972 and/or 1977 to 1979 from a fixed population in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, serum ferritin, transferrin, and ceruloplasmin levels were determined immunologically for persons in whom stomach (233 cases) or lung cancer (84 cases) subsequently developed as well as for their controls. An elevated stomach cancer risk was associated with low antecedent serum ferritin levels, with more than a threefold excess among those in the lowest compared with the highest ferritin quintile. The risk did not vary with the time between blood collection and stomach cancer onset, remaining high among those with low ferritin levels 5 or more years before cancer diagnosis. Achlorhydria, diagnosed in a sample of the population about 10 years before the 1970-to-1972 blood collection and up to 25 years before cancer, was an independent marker of stomach cancer risk. In combination, low serum ferritin and achlorhydria were associated with a tenfold increase in the subsequent risk. No effect of transferrin or ceruloplasmin, independent of ferritin, was observed in the gastric cancer risk, and the risk of lung cancer was not related to these three serum proteins. These prospective findings indicate that biologic markers of an increased risk of stomach cancer can be detected long before cancer onset.

Reliability of serum iron, ferritin, nitrite, and association with risk of renal cancer in women

“…The role of ferritin in cancer is not fully understood. It has been shown that an elevated stomach cancer risk is associated with low serum levels of ferritin, with more than a three-fold excess among those in the lowest compared with the highest quintile [32]. Our findings of a possible protective role of ferritin in RCC are in an agreement with this observation.…”

Iron deficiency accelerates Helicobacter pylori–induced carcinogenesis in rodents and humans

“…Iron deficiency in rats accelerates carcinogen-induced gastrointestinal cancer and metastasis (24), and case-control studies in humans have demonstrated an inverse relationship between dietary iron intake and gastric adenocarcinoma (11)(12)(13)25); similar associations between low iron stores and colorectal cancer risk have also been reported (26,27). The current study represents the first to not only investigate the combinatorial effect of iron deficiency and H. pylori virulence determinants, but also to demonstrate a synergistic influence of these elements on the development of gastric cancer.…”

“…Iron deficiency is associated with an increased risk for neoplasms that arise within the gastrointestinal tract (10), including the stomach (11)(12)(13). H. pylori infection contributes to iron deficiency (14), and bacterial eradication results in reversal of this disorder (15).…”

HFE gene mutations in susceptibility to childhood leukemia: HuGE review

“…Additional case-control studies revealed the same link in colon 98 and liver cancer. 99,100 Some studies yielded negative results in gastric 101 and epithelial cancers. 102 The link between increased body iron and cancer was also suggested by the decreased cancer incidence in regular blood donors in Sweden.…”