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. 2024 Jun;130(10):1687-1696.
doi: 10.1038/s41416-024-02638-2. Epub 2024 Apr 1.

Genetic risk impacts the association of menopausal hormone therapy with colorectal cancer risk

Yu Tian #  1   2 Yi Lin #  3 Conghui Qu  3 Volker Arndt  4 James W Baurley  5   6 Sonja I Berndt  7 Stephanie A Bien  3 D Timothy Bishop  8 Hermann Brenner  4   9   10 Daniel D Buchanan  11   12   13 Arif Budiarto  5 Peter T Campbell  14 Robert Carreras-Torres  15   16   17   18 Graham Casey  19 Andrew T Chan  20   21   22   23   24   25 Rui Chen  1 Xuechen Chen  4 David V Conti  26 Virginia Díez-Obrero  15   16   17 Niki Dimou  27 David A Drew  20   21 Jane C Figueiredo  28   29 Steven Gallinger  30 Graham G Giles  31   32   33 Stephen B Gruber  34 Marc J Gunter  27   35 Sophia Harlid  36 Tabitha A Harrison  3 Akihisa Hidaka  3 Michael Hoffmeister  4 Jeroen R Huyghe  3 Mark A Jenkins  31 Kristina M Jordahl  3   37 Amit D Joshi  24 Temitope O Keku  38 Eric Kawaguchi  26 Andre E Kim  26 Anshul Kundaje  39   40 Susanna C Larsson  41 Loic Le Marchand  42 Juan Pablo Lewinger  26 Li Li  43 Victor Moreno  15   16   17   44 John Morrison  26 Neil Murphy  27 Hongmei Nan  45   46 Rami Nassir  47 Polly A Newcomb  3   37 Mireia Obón-Santacana  15   16   17 Shuji Ogino  23   24   48   49 Jennifer Ose  50   51   52 Bens Pardamean  5 Andrew J Pellatt  53 Anita R Peoples  50   51 Elizabeth A Platz  54 John D Potter  3   37   55 Ross L Prentice  3   56 Gad Rennert  57   58   59 Edward A Ruiz-Narvaez  60 Lori C Sakoda  3   61 Robert E Schoen  62 Anna Shcherbina  63 Mariana C Stern  29 Yu-Ru Su  3   64 Stephen N Thibodeau  65 Duncan C Thomas  26 Konstantinos K Tsilidis  35   66 Franzel J B van Duijnhoven  67 Bethany Van Guelpen  36   68 Kala Visvanathan  54 Emily White  3   37 Alicja Wolk  41 Michael O Woods  69 Anna H Wu  29 Ulrike Peters  3   37 W James Gauderman  26 Li Hsu  70   71 Jenny Chang-Claude  72   73
Affiliations

Genetic risk impacts the association of menopausal hormone therapy with colorectal cancer risk

Yu Tian et al. Br J Cancer. 2024 Jun.

Abstract

Background: Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), a common treatment to relieve symptoms of menopause, is associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). To inform CRC risk prediction and MHT risk-benefit assessment, we aimed to evaluate the joint association of a polygenic risk score (PRS) for CRC and MHT on CRC risk.

Methods: We used data from 28,486 postmenopausal women (11,519 cases and 16,967 controls) of European descent. A PRS based on 141 CRC-associated genetic variants was modeled as a categorical variable in quartiles. Multiplicative interaction between PRS and MHT use was evaluated using logistic regression. Additive interaction was measured using the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI). 30-year cumulative risks of CRC for 50-year-old women according to MHT use and PRS were calculated.

Results: The reduction in odds ratios by MHT use was larger in women within the highest quartile of PRS compared to that in women within the lowest quartile of PRS (p-value = 2.7 × 10-8). At the highest quartile of PRS, the 30-year CRC risk was statistically significantly lower for women taking any MHT than for women not taking any MHT, 3.7% (3.3%-4.0%) vs 6.1% (5.7%-6.5%) (difference 2.4%, P-value = 1.83 × 10-14); these differences were also statistically significant but smaller in magnitude in the lowest PRS quartile, 1.6% (1.4%-1.8%) vs 2.2% (1.9%-2.4%) (difference 0.6%, P-value = 1.01 × 10-3), indicating 4 times greater reduction in absolute risk associated with any MHT use in the highest compared to the lowest quartile of genetic CRC risk.

Conclusions: MHT use has a greater impact on the reduction of CRC risk for women at higher genetic risk. These findings have implications for the development of risk prediction models for CRC and potentially for the consideration of genetic information in the risk-benefit assessment of MHT use.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Effects of polygenic risk score and menopausal hormone therapy on colorectal cancer risk.
PRS.Q the quartiles of polygenic risk score, OR odds ratio, 95%CI 95% confidence interval, CRC colorectal cancer, MHT menopausal hormone therapy, RERI the relative excess risk due to interaction. The regression model was adjusted for age, BMI, study center, and the first three principal components.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. The 30-year cumulative risk estimates (%) of CRC for 50-year-old women, according to any MHT use and quartiles of PRS.
CRC colorectal cancer, PRS.Q the quartiles of polygenic risk score, MHT menopausal hormone therapy.

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