ArticleBMC cancer2025
The impact of sleep on breast cancer-specific mortality: a Mendelian randomisation study.
Article in BMC cancer, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effect of a supervised intermittent exercise program on insomnia in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2026Trial
- Association Between Sleep Disorders and Breast Cancer: An Analysis Based on NHANES and Mendelian Randomization.World journal of oncology · 2026Article
- Mendelian randomization studies on the causal relationship between insomnia and disease.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe relationship between sleep traits and survival in breast cancer is uncertain and complex. There are multiple biological, psychological and treatment-related factors that could link sleep and cancer outcomes. Previous studies could be biased due to methodological limitations such as reverse causation and confounding. Here, we used two-sample mendelian randomisation (MR) to investigate the causal relationship between sleep and breast cancer mortality.
methodsPublicly available genetic summary data from females of European ancestry from UK Biobank and 23andme and the Breast Cancer Association Consortium were used to generate instrumental variables for sleep traits (chronotype, insomnia symptoms, sleep duration, napping, daytime-sleepiness, and ease of getting up (N = 446,118-1,409,137)) and breast cancer outcomes (15 years post-diagnosis, stratified by tumour subtype and treatment (N = 91,686 and Ndeaths = 7,531 over a median follow-up of 8.1 years)). Sensitivity analyses were used to assess the robustness of analyses to MR assumptions.
resultsInitial results found some evidence for a per category increase in daytime-sleepiness reducing overall breast cancer mortality (HR = 0.34, 95% CI = 0.14, 0.80), and for insomnia symptoms reducing odds of mortality in oestrogen receptor positive breast cancers not receiving chemotherapy (HR = 0.18, 95% CI = 0.05, 0.68) and in patients receiving aromatase inhibitors (HR = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.07, 0.78). Importantly, these relationships were not robust following sensitivity analyses meaning we could not demonstrate any causal relationships.
conclusionsThis study did not provide evidence that sleep traits have a causal role in breast cancer mortality. Further work characterising disruption to normal sleep behaviours and its effects on tumour biology, treatment compliance and quality of life are needed.
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