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Allergies, obesity, other risk factors and survival from pancreatic cancer
Author(s) -
Olson Sara H.,
Chou Joanne F.,
Ludwig Emmy,
O'Reilly Eileen,
Allen Peter J.,
Jarnagin William R.,
Bayuga Sharon,
Simon Jennifer,
Gonen Mithat,
Reisacher William R.,
Kurtz Robert C.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
international journal of cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.475
H-Index - 234
eISSN - 1097-0215
pISSN - 0020-7136
DOI - 10.1002/ijc.25240
Subject(s) - medicine , hazard ratio , proportional hazards model , body mass index , allergy , family history , diabetes mellitus , obesity , pancreatic cancer , survival analysis , risk factor , cancer , surgery , confidence interval , endocrinology , immunology
Survival from pancreatic adenocarcinoma remains extremely poor, approximately 5% at 5 years. Risk factors include smoking, high body mass index (BMI), family history of pancreatic cancer, and long‐standing diabetes; in contrast, allergies are associated with reduced risk. Little is known about associations between these factors and survival. We analyzed overall survival in relation to risk factors for 475 incident cases who took part in a hospital based case–control study. Analyses were conducted separately for those who did (160) and did not (315) undergo tumor resection. Kaplan‐Meier methods were used to describe survival according to smoking, BMI, family history, diabetes, and presence of allergies. Cox proportional hazards models were used to adjust for covariates. There was no association with survival based on smoking, family history, or history of diabetes in either group. Among patients with resection, those with allergies showed nonstatistically significant longer survival, a median of 33.1 months (95% CI: 19.0–52.5) vs . 21.8 months (95% CI: 18.0–33.1), p = 0.25. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) was 0.72 (95% CI: 0.43–1.23), p = 0.23. Among patients without resection, those with self‐reported allergies survived significantly longer than those without allergies: 13.3 months (95% CI: 10.6–16.9) compared to 10.4 months (95% CI: 8.8–11.0), p = 0.04, with an adjusted HR of 0.68 (95% CI: 0.49–0.95), p = 0.02. Obesity was nonsignificantly associated with poorer survival, particularly in the resected group (HR = 1.62, 95% CI: 0.76–3.44). The mechanisms underlying the association between history of allergies and improved survival are unknown. These novel results need to be confirmed in other studies.