A retrospective study on female-specific characteristics and their association to colorectal cancer using the PLCO Colorectal dataset

Principal Investigator

Name
Keerthana Clark

Degrees
B.S.N, M.H.A.

Institution
Eastern Virginia Medical School

Position Title
Student

Email
keerthana318@gmail.com

About this CDAS Project

Study
PLCO (Learn more about this study)

Project ID
PLCO-1043

Initial CDAS Request Approval
Sep 9, 2022

Title
A retrospective study on female-specific characteristics and their association to colorectal cancer using the PLCO Colorectal dataset

Summary
There is a gap in evidence to support screening for younger adults and specifically the environmental risk factors for young-onset CRC . Furthermore, there are limited screening guidelines that distinguish females from males (Kim et al., 2015). The current CRC risk scores based on environmental and/or genetic factors developed from past studies had presented a moderate diagnostic efficacy as there is limited research. The purpose of this study is to further investigate a specific sub-group, the female population, and to study specific factors that are in the PLCO dataset that might be potentially associated factors to being diagnosed with CRC. This study is unique as there are very limited studies with a large sample size that looks at the female-specific characteristics in relation to colorectal cancer. This study hopes to further investigate and add to possible risk factors that might have some association with CRC that are specific to the female population. Without a doubt, if there are some possible female-specific risk factors that could be found in this study, there are potential clinical and economic benefits to consider implementing CRC screenings for high-risk females based on these risk factors.

Aims

-This study aims to see if there are any female-specific variables in the PLCO dataset that have an association with confirmed colorectal cancer
- If there are some predictor variables listed that have some association with confirmed colorectal cancer, is there a relationship between the stage of cancer to the different predictor types
-Analyze the data to see if there is an association between the female-specific related risk factors to the female population who died related to CRC?
- Address the pertinent issues relating to gender-related CRC findings

Collaborators

Mohan Dev Pant, Ph.D., PStat (Eastern Virginia Medical School)
Aditya Chakraborty, PhD (Eastern Virginia Medical School)