Title
COPD and lung cancer incidence in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study: A brief report
Publication Date
2020
Journal Title
Lung Cancer
Abstract
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Objectives: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in both men and women in the United States. COPD is associated with lung cancer independently of cigarette smoking, but remains understudied in women. Utilizing data from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI-OS), this report investigates the association between COPD and development of lung cancer, with a focus on ethnicity and cancer subtype. Materials and methods: The WHI-OS, part of the larger Women's Health Initiative (WHI), is comprised of postmenopausal women between ages 50 and 79 years old at enrollment. Self-administered questionnaires were utilized to gather baseline demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral information from participants. For this analysis, COPD status was determined at study entry (baseline) and on annual survey (incident). Information on the primary outcome of interest, diagnosis of lung cancer, was also collected annually. Results and conclusion: Of the 92,789 women examined, 1,536 developed lung cancer. Overall, women with COPD were 1.64 times more likely to develop lung cancer than those without COPD, after adjusting for smoking status and intensity, ethnicity, education, body mass index, and income (HR = 1.64, 95 % CI: 1.43, 1.89). The relationship between COPD and lung cancer was not found to be significantly different between ethnic groups (p-value = 0.697). The associations between COPD and lung cancer was similar across subtypes (HR range 1.31–2.16), after adjusting for smoking status and intensity. COPD increases risk of lung cancer in women, thus they may benefit from more intensive surveillance compared to similar women without COPD.
Volume Number
141
Pages
78 - 81
Document Type
Article
Status
Faculty
Facility
School of Medicine
Primary Department
Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention
PMID
DOI
10.1016/j.lungcan.2020.01.006