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Relationship between hemoglobin and lung cancer: evidence from Mendelian randomization and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

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Abstract

Background

Lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Hemoglobin (Hb) represents the most widely utilized test parameter in clinical settings. However, few articles have examined the causal relationship between Hb concentration and lung cancer incidence.

Methods

Mendelian randomization (MR) was first conducted to investigate the potential causality between Hb and lung cancer. Sensitivity analyses were applied to validate the reliability of MR results. Then, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database was used to verify the effect of Hb on the prognosis of lung cancer.

Results

The MR analysis demonstrated that Hb was casually associated with the decreased risk of lung cancer in the European population (ORIVW 0.84, 95% CI 0.75–0.95, p = 0.006; ORWeighted-median 0.78, 95% CI 0.65–0.94, p = 0.008; ORMR-Egger 0.82, 95% CI 0.64–1.04, p = 0.11). The results from the NHANES database showed that a high value of Hb was associated with better outcomes for patients with lung cancer (HR 0.45, 95% CI 0.26–0.79, p = 1.6E−03).

Conclusions

Our study provides further evidence for the relationship between Hb levels and lung cancer, highlighting the potential significance of Hb as a biomarker for predicting the risk and prognosis of lung cancer.

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Data availability statement

The original data are available in the published GWASs and NHANES database (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes).

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the participating patients in public databases for their contributions.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2021A1515010480 to YB. Zhou).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Peixin Dong, Wenjie Li and Jiating Deng share co-first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Peixin Dong, Jiating Deng, Lixia Huang, Baomo Liu, Shuaishuai Wang, Xiongye Xu, Yan Su, Ziying Lin, Shaoli Li, Jincui Gu, Yanli Qiu & Yanbin Zhou

  2. Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, Guangdong, China

    Wenjie Li

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  1. Peixin Dong
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by PD, WL, JD, LH, BL, SW, XX, YS, ZL, SL, JG, YQ and YZ. The first draft of the manuscript was written by PD, WL and JD. Funding acquisition, project administration, supervision and validation were performed by YZ. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yanbin Zhou.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethical approval

No ethics approval and written consent were needed for the secondary analysis of public data.

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No informed consent were needed for the secondary analysis of public data.

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Dong, P., Li, W., Deng, J. et al. Relationship between hemoglobin and lung cancer: evidence from Mendelian randomization and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Clin Transl Oncol 26, 623–629 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12094-023-03281-8

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