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Body mass index and risk of thyroid cancer in a pooled analysis of cohort studies

Principal Investigator
Name
Cari Kitahara
Institution
NCI, DCEG, NEB
Email
About this CDAS Project
Study
PLCO (Learn more about this study)
Project ID
2009-0048
Initial CDAS Request Approval
Mar 27, 2009
Title
Body mass index and risk of thyroid cancer in a pooled analysis of cohort studies
Summary
The few epidemiologic studies of body mass index in relation to thyroid cancer risk suggest that obesity increases the risk of thyroid cancer, but the evidence is currently insufficient to support a causal association. Furthermore, because thyroid cancer is relatively rare, particularly in men, it is unclear whether this association is modified by age, sex, or cigarette smoking. We propose to conduct a pooled analysis of body mass index and thyroid cancer with the NCI Cohort Consortium, including PLCO. We plan to conduct a pilot study first within five DCEG cohorts and then subsequently to expand to a larger analysis including about 25 cohorts from the consortium. Pooling will allow for a number of sub-group analyses including comparisons by histologic types (which may have different etiologies or be subject to different detection biases), smoking status, sex, and age categories. This proposal has already been approved by the secretariat of the NCI Cohort Consortium BMI Pooling Project.
Aims

1.) To include results from PLCO on the association between body mass index and thyroid cancer risk in a pooled analysis of cohort studies. 2.) To check for heterogeneity by examining study-specific relative risks and confounders. 3.) To examine whether age, sex, or cigarette smoking modify the association between body mass index and thyroid cancer risk, or whether the results are similar when restricting to certain histologic types, mainly papillary and follicular.

Collaborators

Amy Berrington de Gonzalez (Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics)
Patricia Hartge (Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics)
Cari Meinhold (Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics)
Yikyung Park (Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics)

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