In an interview with Targeted Oncology, MD Chen Yuan further described studies of age-dependent associations and risks in pancreatic cancer patients.
Risk factors, considered hereditary or lifestyle-related risk factors, are strongly correlated with early-onset pancreatic cancer, and to prevent cancer and control programs targeting this malignancy, initiation of It shows that age matters.
More than 80% of pancreatic cancer patients present with progressive disease, yet experts are unaware of the appropriate age to consider for prevention and early detection strategies.
A study led by Chen Yuan, MD, observed a total of 167,483 participants from two prospective cohort studies in the United States, with 1,190 cases of pancreatic cancer included in the trial over 30 years of follow-up. was 5,107 pancreatic cancers, 8,845 participants in the control arm of the completed multicenter genome-wide association study, and 248,893 of his pancreatic cancer cases documented in the US Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program was.
Researchers investigated multiple lifestyle factors that may influence early-onset pancreatic cancer, including smoking, obesity, diabetes, height, and non-O blood type. The primary objective of this study was to assess the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by age.
Findings revealed that all five risk factors were more strongly associated with pancreatic cancer risk in younger participants and less so in those aged 70 years or older. , the hazard ratios for participants with 3–5 risk factors and no risk factors were 9.24 (95% CI, 4.11-20.77) and 3.00 (95% CI, 1.85-4.86) for those aged 61 years and older. 1.46 (95% CI, 1.10–1.94) among people aged 70 and over.
“We were able to hypothesize that we found age-dependent patterns for almost all of these risk factors for pancreatic cancer. We found that it plays a greater role in the development of cancer and late-onset pancreatic cancer,” Harvard Medical School, in an interview with Targeted Oncology.TMs.
According to Yuan, these factors were associated with 65.6%, 49.7%, and 17.2% of pancreatic cancers occurring in these age groups, respectively. The study showed age-dependent patterns of risk for nearly all established risk factors for pancreatic cancer.
Consider the age of the target population when designing pancreatic cancer prevention and control programs, as associations between risk factors and pancreatic cancer were found to be strongest in younger participants and weaken with age is needed.
In an interview, Yuan further described research on age-dependent associations and risks in pancreatic cancer patients.
Targeted Oncology: Can you explain the purpose of this study of age-specific associations and attributes of pancreatic cancer risk?
Original: The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that early-onset pancreatic cancer may be most strongly associated with genetic and lifestyle factors than late-onset pancreatic cancer. As you may know, pancreatic cancer is his third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Age is known to be the greatest risk factor for pancreatic cancer. In the United States, pancreatic cancer incidence and mortality increase significantly with age.
In the last few decades, the incidence of pancreatic cancer in the United States has increased at all ages, especially among young people. Late-onset cancers have fewer driver events caused by genetic and lifestyle factors and may be due to random mutations. Cases have also been found to have a younger age of onset compared to cases without the factor.
Can you talk about what was explored in this study?
This study examines different risk factors in different patient populations. We utilized full population-based studies, including two prospective cohort studies. A previously completed multicenter genome-wide association study, similar to the US Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program. We were looking at multiple established risk factors for pancreatic cancer, including genetic and lifestyle factors.
Which specific factors were considered in the study?
Specifically, we focused on lifestyle factors such as smoking and obesity, and genetic factors such as non-O blood type and height. is considered to be high. We also examined the genetic risk score, which consists of 22 single-nucleotide polymorphisms identified by previous genome-wide association studies.
In addition, we focus on demographic factors such as gender and race, as men and blacks have a higher risk of pancreatic cancer compared to women and whites, respectively. All of these factors were positively associated with pancreatic cancer risk in previous studies.
What were the main findings of this study?
I was able to prove my hypothesis. Almost all of these risk factors for pancreatic cancer have an age-dependent pattern, and genetic and lifestyle factors play a major role in the development of early-onset and late-onset pancreatic cancer. Plays. For example, those under the age of 60 who had ever smoked had nearly twice the risk as nonsmokers.
This association naturally weakened among people over the age of 70, but a similar trend was seen for obesity and other risk factors. Considering these risk factors combined, he is associated with more than 60% of pancreatic cancers under the age of 60, compared with less than 20% of those over the age of 70.
What did your research reveal about behavioral changes to reduce cancer risk?
Because smoking and obesity are not strongly associated with pancreatic cancer risk after age 70, preventive interventions associated with these factors should be implemented at a younger age to maximize efficacy.
The study also found that smoking cessation at a younger age was associated with a lower risk of pancreatic cancer. Specifically, individuals who had smoked before the age of 50 had about the same reduced risk as never-smokers. Similarly, obesity was associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer when onset before age 50, but not after age 50. If you want to prevent pancreatic cancer, lifestyle interventions should be done at an early age.
What impact do you think these findings will have on the future of the field?
Future pancreatic cancer risk factor identification and prediction models should consider age not only as a risk marker for pancreatic cancer, but also as a stratification variable that may alter the association or predictive ability of these risk factors. must be considered.
Second, regarding early detection strategies for pancreatic cancer, strategies that consider tumor-induced symptoms or signs may be more useful than those based on risk factors themselves alone. These are the main implications of this study for the future.
How would you advise your primary care colleagues to help patients reduce their cancer risk?
Although 50% of pancreatic cancers are diagnosed at age 70, younger cases contribute significantly to the social burden of this disease. Because this is a highly fatal disease and young cases can cause a significant amount of potential years of life.
To prevent early-onset pancreatic cancer, lifestyle interventions must be implemented at an early age. Conversely, early detection programs may have great potential to reduce mortality from pancreatic cancer in all populations.
