ArticleBMC medicine2024
Serum urea concentration and risk of 16 site-specific cancers, overall cancer, and cancer mortality in individuals with metabolic syndrome: a cohort study.
Article in BMC medicine, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Maternal liver function and adverse pregnancy outcomes in Chinese women with HIV: a cohort study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Serum Levels of Trace Elements and Minerals in Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Patients with and without Type 2 Diabetes are Associated with Metabolic Risk Markers.Biological trace element research · 2026Article
- Causal relationship between metabolic syndrome and gastric cancer: insights from comprehensive analysis and biomarker identification.Translational cancer research · 2026Article
- Salivary BCAA, Glutamate, Glutamine and Urea as Potential Indicators of Nitrogen Metabolism Imbalance in Breast Cancer.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Article
- Risk factors for cancer among patients with type 2 diabetes: a retrospective cohort study.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- A Population-Specific Ensemble Machine Learning Model for Predicting Borderline or Malignancy Risk of Ovarian Masses in Macao: A Multicenter Retrospective Study.Clinical Medicine Insights. Oncology · 2025Article
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Abstract
backgroundThe relationship between serum urea concentration and cancer in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS) remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the association between serum urea concentration and 16 site-specific cancers, overall cancer incidence, and cancer mortality in individuals with MetS.
methodsWe analysed the data of 108,284 individuals with MetS obtained from the UK Biobank. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to determine the association between serum urea concentration at recruitment and cancer. The Benjamini-Hochberg correction was used to account for multiple comparisons.
resultsOver the median follow-up period of 11.86 years, 18,548 new incident cases of cancer were documented. There were inverse associations of urea concentration with overall cancer incidence, and the incidence of oesophageal and lung cancers, with respective hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) [HR (95% CI)] for the highest (Q4) vs lowest (Q1) urea quartiles of 0.95 (0.91-0.99), 0.68 (0.50-0.92), and 0.76 (0.64-0.90). However, high serum urea concentrations increased the male prostate cancer risk (HR 1.15; 95% CI 1.02-1.30). Although the Cox model indicated a protective effect of higher urea levels against stomach (HR 0.67; 95% CI 0.45-0.98; p = 0.040; FDR 0.120) and colorectal cancer (HR 0.86; 95% CI 0.74-0.99; p = 0.048; FDR 0.123), no strong evidence of association was found after applying the Benjamin-Hochberg correction. Moreover, across the median follow-up period of 13.77 years for cancer mortality outcome, 5034 cancer deaths were detected. An "L-shaped" nonlinear dose-response relationship between urea concentration and cancer mortality was discovered (p-nonlinear < 0.001), and the HR (95% CI) for urea concentration Q4 vs Q1 was 0.83 (0.77-0.91).
conclusionsSerum urea concentration can be considered as a valuable biomarker for evaluating cancer risk in individuals with MetS, potentially contributing to personalised cancer screening and management strategies.
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