Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 23:12:895479.
doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.895479. eCollection 2022.

Associations of Pre-Diagnostic Serum Levels of Total Bilirubin and Albumin With Lung Cancer Risk: Results From the Southern Community Cohort Study

Hyung-Suk Yoon  1 , Xiao-Ou Shu  1 , Chris Shidal  1 , Jie Wu  1 , William J Blot  1 , Wei Zheng  1 , Qiuyin Cai  1
Affiliations

Associations of Pre-Diagnostic Serum Levels of Total Bilirubin and Albumin With Lung Cancer Risk: Results From the Southern Community Cohort Study

Hyung-Suk Yoon et al. Front Oncol. .

Abstract

Background: Previous studies conducted among European and Asian decedents reported inverse associations of serum total bilirubin and albumin with lung cancer risk. Yet, no study has been conducted among African Americans or low-income European Americans.

Methods: This study included 522 incident lung cancer cases and 979 matched controls nested in the Southern Community Cohort Study, a cohort of predominantly low-income African and European Americans. Serum levels of total bilirubin and albumin, collected up to 11 years prior to case diagnoses, were measured by a clinical chemistry analyzer. Conditional logistic regression models were applied to evaluate the associations of total bilirubin and albumin with lung cancer risk.

Results: Overall, serum levels of total bilirubin (ORT3 vs. T1 = 0.96, 95% CI: 0.66-1.39) were not significantly associated with lung cancer risk. However, higher levels of serum total bilirubin were significantly associated with decreased risk of lung cancer among participants who were diagnosed within two years following sample collection (ORT3 vs. T1 = 0.36, 95% CI: 0.15-0.87) and among former/never smokers (ORT3 vs. T1 = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.32-0.93). Serum levels of albumin were significantly associated with decreased risk of lung cancer overall (ORT3 vs. T1 = 0.70, 95% CI: 0.50-0.98) and among African Americans (ORT3 vs. T1 = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.41-0.96), but not among European Americans.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that in a low-income African American and European American population, serum levels of total bilirubin may be related to lung cancer progression and differ by smoking status. Meanwhile, the association of serum albumin levels with lung cancer risk may differ by race. Further studies are warranted to confirm these results.

Keywords: African Americans; Southern Community Cohort Study; albumin (ALB); low-income populations; lung cancer; smoking; total bilirubin (TB).

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Siegel RL, Miller KD, Fuchs HE, Jemal A. Cancer Statistics, 2021. CA Cancer J Clin (2021) 71:7–33. doi: 10.3322/caac.21654 - DOI - PubMed
    1. American Lung Association . Too Many Cases, Too Many Deaths. In: Lung Cancer in African Americans. (Washington D.C: American Lung Association; ), (2010).
    1. Ryan BM. Lung Cancer Health Disparities. Carcinogenesis (2018) 39:741–51. doi: 10.1093/carcin/bgy047 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pham-Huy LA, He H, Pham-Huy C. Free Radicals, Antioxidants in Disease and Health. Int J BioMed Sci (2008) 4:89–96. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Marnett LJ. Oxyradicals and DNA Damage. Carcinogenesis (2000) 21:361–70. doi: 10.1093/carcin/21.3.361 - DOI - PubMed