ArticleBMC medicine2020
Breast cancer risk factors and their effects on survival: a Mendelian randomisation study.
Article in BMC medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 103 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence and risk factors for nausea and vomiting in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2026Pooled it
- Global determinants of breast cancer mortality: a comprehensive meta-analysis of clinical, demographic, and lifestyle risk factors.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Risk factors for breast cancer: an umbrella review of observational cohort studies and causal relationship analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Pooled it
- Body mass index, weight change, and cancer prognosis: a meta-analysis and systematic review of 73 cohort studies.ESMO open · 2024Pooled it
- Development and internal-external validation of statistical and machine learning models for breast cancer prognostication: cohort study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2023Pooled it
- Postdiagnosis recreational physical activity and breast cancer prognosis: Global Cancer Update Programme (CUP Global) systematic literature review and meta-analysis.International journal of cancer · 2023Pooled it
- Germline variants and breast cancer survival in patients with distant metastases at primary breast cancer diagnosis.Scientific reports · 2021Pooled it
- Predicting breast cancer 5-year survival using machine learning: A systematic review.PloS one · 2021Pooled it
- Article
- Modulation of the tumor microenvironment by incretins and glucagon: Metabolic and immune mechanisms (Review).Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2026Review
- Diabetes and Cancer-Specific Survival: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study Across Multiple Cancer Sites.Cancer reports (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Identification of druggable genetic targets for prostate cancer risk based on mendelian randomization and single-cell RNA sequencing.International urology and nephrology · 2025Article
- Ambient air pollution and mortality in older patients with breast cancer.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2025Article
- Association of change in physical activity with use of outpatient specialist care and hospitalisations among breast cancer survivors with type 2 diabetes in Sweden.British journal of cancer · 2025Article
- Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals the effects of mental stress on mouse mammary tumors and the tumor microenvironment.Cell death discovery · 2025Article
- Genetic evidence from Mendelian randomization links CD40 levels to increased risk of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The application of mendelian randomization in cancer research: a bibliometric analysis.Discover oncology · 2025Article
- Insights from the largest diverse ancestry sex-specific disease map for genetically predicted height.NPJ genomic medicine · 2025Article
- The impact of sleep on breast cancer-specific mortality: a Mendelian randomisation study.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Complex Role of Circulating Triglycerides in Breast Cancer Onset and Survival: Insights From Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study.Cancer medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundObservational studies have investigated the association of risk factors with breast cancer prognosis. However, the results have been conflicting and it has been challenging to establish causality due to potential residual confounding. Using a Mendelian randomisation (MR) approach, we aimed to examine the potential causal association between breast cancer-specific survival and nine established risk factors for breast cancer: alcohol consumption, body mass index, height, physical activity, mammographic density, age at menarche or menopause, smoking, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
methodsWe conducted a two-sample MR analysis on data from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) and risk factor summary estimates from the GWAS Catalog. The BCAC data included 86,627 female patients of European ancestry with 7054 breast cancer-specific deaths during 15 years of follow-up. Of these, 59,378 were estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and 13,692 were ER-negative breast cancer patients. For the significant association, we used sensitivity analyses and a multivariable MR model. All risk factor associations were also examined in a model adjusted by other prognostic factors.
resultsIncreased genetic liability to T2DM was significantly associated with worse breast cancer-specific survival (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.03-1.17, P value [P] = 0.003). There were no significant associations after multiple testing correction for any of the risk factors in the ER-status subtypes. For the reported significant association with T2DM, the sensitivity analyses did not show evidence for violation of the MR assumptions nor that the association was due to increased BMI. The association remained significant when adjusting by other prognostic factors.
conclusionsThis extensive MR analysis suggests that T2DM may be causally associated with worse breast cancer-specific survival and therefore that treating T2DM may improve prognosis.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.