ArticleFrontiers in public health2022
U-Shaped Relationship of Rare Earth Element Lanthanum and Oral Cancer Risk: A Propensity Score-Based Study in the Southeast of China.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- From Metal-Related Public Health Risks to Bioremediation: The Potential of the PolyextremophilicInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2026Pooled it
- Article
- Sex disparities in the association between rare earth elements exposure and genetic mutation frequencies in lung cancer patients.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Review
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14 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
As an important rare earth element (REE) extensively applied to industry, agriculture, and medicine, lanthanum (La) has attracted a host of health concerns. This study aimed to explore the relationship between La exposure and the risk of developing oral cancer through a case-control study with a large sample size. Serum La levels of 430 oral cancer patients and 1,118 healthy controls were detected by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The association of La level with the risk of oral cancer was assessed in two ways: (1) as a continuous scale based on restricted cubic splines (RCS); (2) as a priori defined centile categories using multivariate logistic regression model, based on propensity score matching (PSM) and inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW). The RCS revealed a non-linear U-shaped relationship between serum La and oral cancer risk. Serum La deficiency or excess was associated with an increased risk of oral cancer. When the La level was analyzed as a categorical variable, a similar U-shaped association was observed. Of note, compared to those with La concentrations of 0.243-0.341 μg/L (reference quantiles, 41st-60th), the risk was increased in those with the lower or higher quantiles (0.132-0.242 μg/L vs. 0.243-0.341 μg/L: OR = 1.80, 95%CI: 1.07-3.02; 0.342-0.497 μg/L vs. 0.243-0.341 μg/L: OR = 2.30, 95%CI: 1.38-3.84). The results were generally consistent with the PSM and IPTW analyses. This preliminary study provides strong evidence that there was a U-shaped relationship between serum La levels and oral cancer risk. Much additional work is warranted to confirm our findings.
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