ArticleCancer causes & control : CCC2025
Adult head circumference and the risk of cancer: a retrospective cohort study.
Article in Cancer causes & control : CCC, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeCancer-related genes and pathways have recently been implicated in a genome-wide meta-analysis of head size. In the current study, we aimed to evaluate the association between adult head circumference and the risk of cancer.
methodsThis is a cohort study using data from the Hong Kong Osteoporosis Study, where 1,301 participants aged 27-96 years with head circumference measured between 2015 and 2019, and without a history of cancer, were followed up to 15 January 2024. Incident cancers were identified using electronic medical records from a territory-wide database. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression, adjusting for age, sex, height, weight, education, smoking, alcohol drinking, physical activity, and family history of cancer, as well as accounting for familial clustering.
resultsThe median head circumference was 53 cm (interquartile range [IQR]: 51-54) and 54 cm (IQR: 53-55) for women and men, respectively. During a median follow-up of 6.9 years, 66 individuals were diagnosed with cancer. In the adjusted model, a larger head circumference was associated with an increased risk of any cancer (HR per cm increase: 1.17; 95% CI 1.00-1.36). Results remained similar when adjusting for waist-to-hip ratio instead of weight or when additionally adjusting for serum calcium and phosphorus levels. When stratified by cancer sites, head circumference was most strongly associated with colorectal cancer (HR per cm increase: 1.81; 95% CI 1.14-2.90) and prostate cancer (HR per cm increase: 1.58; 95% CI 1.16-2.16).
conclusionHead circumference is positively associated with the risk of cancer independently of height, weight, and other cancer risk factors.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.