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. 2018 Nov 6;18(1):1232.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-6073-6.

White blood cell count and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the Guangzhou biobank cohort study

Tao Wang  1 , Chao Qiang Jiang  2 , Lin Xu  3   4 , Wei Sen Zhang  5 , Feng Zhu  5 , Ya Li Jin  5 , G Neil Thomas  6 , Kar Keung Cheng  6 , Tai Hing Lam  5   7
Affiliations

White blood cell count and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the Guangzhou biobank cohort study

Tao Wang et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Several studies have shown positive associations between higher WBC count and deaths from all-causes, CHD, stroke and cancer among occidental populations or developed countries of Asia. No study on the association of WBC count with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Chinese populations was reported. We studied this using prospective data from a large Chinese cohort.

Methods: We used prospective data from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study (GBCS), a total of 29,925 participants in present study. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI).

Results: The hazard ratios (HR) for all-cause, CHD, and respiratory disease mortality for the highest decile of WBC count (women > 8.2 × 109/L; men > 8.8 × 109/L) was 1.83 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.54, 2.17), 3.02 (95% CI 1.84, 4.98) and 2.52 (95% CI 1.49, 4.27), respectively, after adjusting for multiple potential confounders. The associations were similar when deaths during the first 2 years of follow-up were excluded. After further adjusting for pulmonary function, the highest decile of WBC count was associated with 90% higher risk of respiratory disease mortality (HR 1.90, 95% CI 1.08, 3.33). No evidence for an association between higher WBC count and cancer mortality was found. Sub-type analysis showed that only granulocyte count remained significantly predictive of all-cause, CHD, and respiratory disease mortality.

Conclusions: Elevated WBC, specifically granulocyte, count was associated with all-cause, CHD and respiratory mortality in southern Chinese. Further investigation is warranted to clarify whether decreasing inflammation would attenuate WBC count associated mortality.

Keywords: All-cause mortality; Cause-specific mortality; Granulocyte count; Prospective cohort study; White blood cell count.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The GBCS was approved by Guangzhou Medical Ethics Committee of the Chinese Medical Association. All participants provided written, informed consent before participation.

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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