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Lifestyle factors and health history among cancer survivors

Principal Investigator
Name
Mia Hashibe
Degrees
PhD
Institution
University of Utah
Position Title
Assistant Professor
Email
About this CDAS Project
Study
PLCO (Learn more about this study)
Project ID
PLCO-137
Initial CDAS Request Approval
Mar 23, 2015
Title
Lifestyle factors and health history among cancer survivors
Summary
There are an estimated 14.5 million cancer survivors in the US today, with an additional 1.6 million cancer cases diagnosed each year (American Cancer Society, 2014). The five-year cancer survival rates have been increasing over the last few decades and the number of cancer survivors, particularly long-term survivors is increasing. The current NCCN guidelines for survivorship states that ‘The exact prevalence of various effects of cancer and its treatment are hard to quantify, because few studies have addressed these issues in a longitudinal fashion. In general, the prevalence of late effects in cancer survivors in believed to have increased over time, likely because anticancer interventions have become more complex and intense with combinations of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and targeted biologics” (NCCN, 2015). In the PLCO trial, the supplemental questionnaires administered to the study subjects between 2006-2008 has information on demographics, the history of health, smoking, medications, physical activity and other details. Focusing on this information for cancer survivors will provide important descriptive information for cancer survivors on employment status, weight at specific ages, health history (stroke, heart attack, high cholesterol, high blood pressures, diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma, emphysema, arthritis), NSAID intake, lifestyle factors (physical activity, tobacco).
Aims

Our overall aim is to report on the lifestyle factors and health history among cancer survivors in the PLCO trial. Our specific aims are:

Specific aim 1: To report on the lifestyle factors of cancer survivors and assess whether they have healthier habits (less smoking, more physical activity, more NSAID intake, less weight gain over age decades) than the non-cancer population in the PLCO trial. We will compare whether the smoking status changed after cancer diagnosis by comparing the baseline questionnare and the supplemental questionnaire reports. We will also assess whether cancer survivors have different employment status distribution compared to the non-cancer population.

Specific aim 2: To report on the health history of cancer survivors, after their cancer diagnosis. We will estimate the proportion of cancer survivors with each of the diseases/condition in the health history compared to the non-cancer population. We will confirm that the health history outcome occurred after the cancer diagnosis. We will also assess risk ratios for the health history outcomes, with cancer diagnosis as a possible predictor of higher risks of these health history outcomes. The analysis will also be stratified on cancer site groupings.

Specific aim 3: To assess whether cancer treatment and lifestyle factors contribute to any increased risks of health history outcomes among cancer survivors. Specifically, one example would be to assess the risk of stroke due to tobacco and cancer treatment, among the cancer survivors.

Collaborators

Saundra Buys, MD, University of Utah
Lisa Gren, PhD, University of Utah
Ken Smith, PhD, University of Utah
Jessica Jones, MD, MPH, University of Utah

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