Cancer epidemiology articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studying survivorship and causes of death in patients with metastatic cancer remains an important task. Here, the authors characterise the causes of death in over a million patients with metastatic cancer, and predict the risk of death after diagnosis due to cancer-related or other causes.

    • Kyle Mani
    • , Daxuan Deng
    •  & Nicholas G. Zaorsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multiple myeloma (MM) is a haematological malignancy that is preceded by monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). Here, the authors use a mechanistic model fitted to surveillance data from the United States to investigate whether variation in MM is best explained by incidence of MGUS or rate of progression to MM.

    • John H. Huber
    • , Mengmeng Ji
    •  & Su-Hsin Chang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have improved our understanding of the genetic basis of lung adenocarcinoma but known susceptibility variants explain only a small fraction of the familial risk. Here, the authors perform a two-stage GWAS and report 12 novel genetic loci associated with lung adenocarcinoma in East Asians.

    • Jianxin Shi
    • , Kouya Shiraishi
    •  & Qing Lan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pancreatic cancer patients have previously been noted to have a change in medication history prior to diagnosis. Here, the authors utilise two large population cohorts to show associations between recent medication changes and risk of a subsequent pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

    • Yin Zhang
    • , Qiao-Li Wang
    •  & Brian M. Wolpin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, in a cohort of 772 women undergoing triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) therapy, the authors show that antimicrobial prescription during TNBC treatment associates with inferior overall and breast cancer-specific survival, in turn related to peripheral lymphocyte count and gut microbiome dysbiosis.

    • Julia D. Ransohoff
    • , Victor Ritter
    •  & Allison W. Kurian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nutritional conditions experienced early in life may influence the disease risk of future children and grandchildren. Here the authors report that food abundance among boys before puberty associates with the relative risk of a range of cancers in grandsons, but not in granddaughters.

    • Denny Vågerö
    • , Agneta Cederström
    •  & Gerard J. van den Berg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modelling how endogenous mutations accumulate in tissues is valuable to understand how cancers develop and evolve. Here, the authors establish a mathematical model that can predict the number of endogenous somatic mutations in the lifetime of tissues and approximate the time to cancer development.

    • Sophie Pénisson
    • , Amaury Lambert
    •  & Cristian Tomasetti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a known cause of cervical cancer. Here, the authors perform a multi-omic analysis using published cervical squamous cell carcinoma cohorts from the USA, Europe, and SubSaharan Africa and identify two cervical squamous cell carcinoma subtypes that display prognostic differences.

    • Ankur Chakravarthy
    • , Ian Reddin
    •  & Tim R. Fenton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Frequency of cancer-related gene mutations can vary between populations. Here, the authors show differences in TP53 and other gene mutations between the U.S. and Chinese patients, and analyse differences in environmental risk factors to demonstrate that population-specific factors should be considered when discussing cancer risk.

    • Fayang Ma
    • , Kyle Laster
    •  & Zigang Dong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Glucocorticoids, such as dexamethasone, are used as anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs, however patients may exhibit resistance or side effects. Here the authors propose that a dexamethasone related neutrophil-specific DNA methylation index can be used as a marker of glucocorticoid exposure and response and as a prognostic factor in brain tumor survival.

    • J. K. Wiencke
    • , Annette M. Molinaro
    •  & Karl T. Kelsey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the frequency of gene mutations in cancer could be important for generating targeted therapeutics. Here, the authors use SEER data and cancer genomics data from TCGA to estimate the gene mutation frequencies in the US cancer population.

    • Gaurav Mendiratta
    • , Eugene Ke
    •  & Edward C. Stites

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Appropriate risk models could facilitate risk stratification for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Here, the authors propose a blood-based microRNA signature observed to have altered expression in pre-diagnostic samples, which might be useful to identify high-risk populations for colorectal cancer screening.

    • Janhavi R. Raut
    • , Ben Schöttker
    •  & Hermann Brenner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Diet and food intake have been associated with a risk of developing different types of cancer but individual nutritional epidemiology studies are prone to inherent bias. Here, the authors perform an umbrella review of meta-analyses of observational studies and show the level of evidence for associating food and nutrients to cancer risk.

    • Nikos Papadimitriou
    • , Georgios Markozannes
    •  & Konstantinos K. Tsilidis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While genetic loci shared between cancer types have been identified, cross-cancer relationships for polygenic risk scores have not been well studied. Here, the authors have developed polygenic risk scores for 16 cancers in two large cohorts and identified positive and inverse cross-cancer associations.

    • Rebecca E. Graff
    • , Taylor B. Cavazos
    •  & Lori C. Sakoda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studies of the genetic association between vitamin D and cancer risk have typically been underpowered. Here the authors analyse this using Mendelian Randomisation with more than 70 vitamin D variants obtained from the UK Biobank and large-scale data from various consortia, confirming null associations between vitamin D and most cancers.

    • Jue-Sheng Ong
    • , Suzanne C. Dixon-Suen
    •  & Stuart MacGregor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicting cancer risk requires large datasets and sophisticated models. Here the authors integrate polygenic risk scores and modifiable risk factors for multiple cancers in the UK Biobank, improving general risk prediction and distinguishing cases where genetic or lifestyle factors have stronger associations.

    • Linda Kachuri
    • , Rebecca E. Graff
    •  & Mattias Johansson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pleiotropic loci and genome-wide genetic correlations have identified shared heritability across some types of cancers. Here, the authors perform genome-wide association studies and characterize pan-cancer heritability and pleiotropy in individuals of European ancestry across 18 cancer types from two large cohorts.

    • Sara R. Rashkin
    • , Rebecca E. Graff
    •  & John S. Witte

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors have been suggested to have an anti-tumor effect and block surgery-induced immunosuppression. Here, the authors show that postdiagnostic use of PDE5 inhibitors is associated with a decreased risk of colorectal cancerspecific mortality as well as a decreased risk of metastasis.

    • Wuqing Huang
    • , Jan Sundquist
    •  & Jianguang Ji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Post-translational modifications of proteins at DNA damage sites can facilitate the recruitment of DNA repair factors. Here, the authors show that mRNA is locally modified with m5C at sites of DNA damage by the RNA methyltransferase TRDMT1 to promote homologous recombination repair.

    • Hao Chen
    • , Haibo Yang
    •  & Li Lan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    As the overlap between heart disease and cancer patients increases as cancer-specific mortality is decreasing, identifying cancer patients who are at an increased risk of death from heart disease is important. Here the authors report on risk of death from heart diseases among more than 7.5 million cancer patients.

    • Kelsey C. Stoltzfus
    • , Ying Zhang
    •  & Nicholas G. Zaorsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of impaired lung function in lung cancer etiology is complex due to the relation of cigarette smoking to both conditions. Here, supported by Mendelian randomization analysis the authors find a link between pulmonary function impairment and lung cancer risk beyond smoking, implicating immune-related pathways

    • Linda Kachuri
    • , Mattias Johansson
    •  & Rayjean J. Hung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interval cancer patients are more likely to carry rare gene mutations than screen-detected breast cancer patients. Here, the authors report that interval cancer patients are more likely cancer survivors and are at a greater risk of developing other non-breast tumors.

    • Felix Grassmann
    • , Wei He
    •  & Kamila Czene

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Obesity is linked to increased cancer risk but the impact of body size versus weight distribution in determining the increased risk is unclear. Here the authors examined body mass index, waist circumference, and waist to hip ratio in relation to all-cancer incidence and incidence of seven individual cancers in a population of approximately 26,000 individual and conclude that central adiposity appears to be a stronger predictor of all-cancer risk than body size.

    • Amanda M. Barberio
    • , Asalah Alareeki
    •  & Darren R. Brenner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cancer patients are at an increased risk of suicide: elderly, white, unmarried males with localized disease are at highest risk vs other cancer patients. Among those diagnosed at < 50 years of age, the plurality of suicides is from hematologic and testicular tumors; if > 50, from prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer patients.

    • Nicholas G. Zaorsky
    • , Ying Zhang
    •  & Vernon M. Chinchilli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Waldenström macroglobulinemia (WM)/lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma (LPL) is a non-Hodgkin-type B cell lymphoma. Here, the authors identify two risk loci for WM/LPL in a two-stage GWAS involving a family-oversampling approach and provide evidence for a functional role of the non-coding SNP rs116446171.

    • Mary L. McMaster
    • , Sonja I. Berndt
    •  & Neil E. Caporaso

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The link between circulating lipids and breast cancer risk is complex. Here, the authors utilise data from more than 400,000 participants in two-sample Mendelian randomization to assess the link between blood lipids and breast cancer risk, and they find risk-promoting effects of raised LDL-cholesterol and CETP-mediated raised HDL-cholesterol.

    • Christoph Nowak
    •  & Johan Ärnlöv

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Understanding the contributions of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on cancer risk is fundamental in determining the intervention and prevention strategies to tackle cancer. Here the authors provide a review of the different factors impacting cancer risk and discuss the limitations of different approaches in evaluating the relative contributions of these factors.

    • Song Wu
    • , Wei Zhu
    •  & Yusuf A Hannun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Post-diagnostic use of cholera vaccine can improve the prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer suggesting cholera toxin might have an antineoplastic effect. Here the authors perform a nationwide population-based study and report an association between cholera vaccine administration and reduction in prostate cancer mortality.

    • Jianguang Ji
    • , Jan Sundquist
    •  & Kristina Sundquist

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Genetic variants associated with susceptibility to pancreatic cancer have been identified using genome wide association studies (GWAS). Here, the authors combine data from over 9000 patients and perform a meta-analysis to identify five novel loci linked to pancreatic cancer.

    • Alison P. Klein
    • , Brian M. Wolpin
    •  & Laufey T. Amundadottir

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cancer heritability estimates can be obtained via decomposing trait variance into genetic and other factors. Here, the authors obtain the distribution of absolute genetic risk for 15 common cancers, and they use a number of metrics to show that the genetic risk varies considerably across individuals.

    • Mats Julius Stensrud
    •  & Morten Valberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The incidence of renal cell carcinoma is higher in males than in females due to the different androgen receptor signaling but the molecular mechanisms behind this gender bias are unclear. Here the authors show how androgen receptor expression influences the metastatic route through the regulation of miR-185 and VEGF isoforms.

    • Qingbo Huang
    • , Yin Sun
    •  & Chawnshang Chang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Risk for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is higher when there are first-degree family members with the disease. Here, Scelo and colleagues perform a genome-wide association meta-analysis and new genome-wide scan to identify seven new loci with significant RCC association.

    • Ghislaine Scelo
    • , Mark P. Purdue
    •  & Stephen J. Chanock

Browse broader subjects

Browse Cancer epidemiology across other nature.com journals