Abstract
Objective
Endometrial cancer (EC) is a common malignancy of the female reproductive system and although most patients have a good prognosis, 20–30% of patients with advanced disease have a poor prognosis. There are currently no reliable biomarkers for early diagnosis and effective prognostic improvement of the disease. The purpose of this study was to explore the correlation between different forms of folic acid and endometrial cancer.
Methods
This study included 8809 female subjects aged ≥ 20 years in the NHANES database from 2011 to 2018, including 8738 non-oncology patients and 71 EC patients. Selection bias was reduced using 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) method. Restricted cubic spline (RCS) was plotted to explore the non-linear relationship between different forms of folic acid and EC.
Result
Using data from the NHANES database from 2011 to 2018, the association between folic acid and the risk of developing EC was assessed. The results of the 1:1 ratio propensity score matching (PSM) showed 68 each for EC patients and non-oncology participants. Total serum folate, 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (5-methylTHF), 5-formyltetrahydrofolate (5-formylTHF), tetrahydrofolate (THF) and 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate (5,10-methenylTHF) were significantly correlated with EC (p < 0.05). In addition, the RCS showed a significant non-linear correlation between THF and 5,10-formyl THF and the risk of developing EC.
Conclusion
The results of this study showed that changes in serum total folate, 5-methylTHF, 5-formylTHF, THF and 5,10-methenylTHF were related to EC.
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Data availability
All NHANES data for this study are publicly available and can be found here: https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the staff at the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control for designing, collecting, and collating the NHANES data and creating the public database.
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Conceptualization, MZ; methodology, RL; validation, SZ and XF; formal analysis, LL; data curation, XX; writing-original draft preparation, MZ; writing—review and editing, YG. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki. The NHANES database has been approved by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Research Ethics Review Committee of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and all participants have signed informed consent forms.
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Zhang, M., Li, R., Fan, X. et al. Correlation of several forms of folic acid with endometrial cancer: cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) 2011–2018. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 149, 13619–13629 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-05177-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-05177-0