Cancer
The association between protein biomarkers and thyroid cancer in a racially and socioeconomically diverse population in New-York: A nested case-control study Gary Joseph* Gary Joseph Maaike van Gerwen Seunghee Kim-Schulze Zhihong Chen Girish N. Nadkami Haibin Guan Elena Colicino Eric M. Genden Lauren M. Petrick
Background: Inflammation is a hallmark of cancer. However, there is a lack of studies exploring the association between inflammation protein biomarkers and thyroid cancer (TC) in humans. We assessed the association between inflammation protein biomarkers and TC risk, using plasma samples collected at or before the TC diagnosis.
Methods: We identified 88 patients with TC and matched them with 88 controls based on sex, age, race/ethnicity, body mass index, smoking status, and year of sample collection in BioMe, a medical record-linked biobank at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Ninety-two proteins measured by the Inflammation Olink Target 96 were included in the analysis. We assessed the association between the proteins and TC using logistic regression, Cox regression (for TC cases diagnosed ≥ 1 year after plasma samples collection and their matched controls) and generalized weighted quantile sum (gWQS) regression models.
Results: Eight proteins were negatively and nominally associated with TC including CCL19 (ORadj, 0.67, 95%CI: 0.47-0.94), CDCP1 (ORadj, 0.48, 95%CI: 0.25-0.88), CST5 (ORadj, 0.42, 95%CI: 0.21-0.78), CXCL6 (ORadj, 0.73, 95%CI: 0.53-0.99), FGF-21 (ORadj, 0.73, 95%CI: 0.56-0.93), IL7 (ORadj, 0.55, 95%CI: 0.31-0.96), MMP-1 (ORadj, 0.72, 95%CI:0.54-0.95), and OPG (ORadj, 0.34, 95%CI: 0.15-0.72), many of which belong to the pathway of proinflammatory and profibrotic mediators (WikiPathways, WP5095, FDR=9.68e-05). Similar associations were noted in subgroup analysis for TC cases diagnosed ≥ 1 year after plasma samples collection. Additionally, we observed a negative TC association with the proteomic mixture (β=-1.17, p=0.022).
Conclusion: Negative associations were found between the proteins and TC risk, which suggests a potential protective role of these proteins in the context of TC. Large-scale prospective studies are needed to better understand these biomarkers’ contribution in TC development.