Cancer survival in parents who lost a child: a nationwide study in Denmark

Li, Jiong; Johansen, Christoffer; Olsen, Jørn

doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6600948

Cited by 65 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In none did we find evidence for an independent link between psychological factors such as severe depression (Dalton et al, 2002), personality traits (Hansen et al, 2005) or stressful life events (Li et al, 2002;Dalton et al, 2004) and cancer risk. We conclude that there is no convincing evidence that psychological factors cause cancer.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

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Stressful life events and cancer risk

et al. 2006

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In a prospective cohort study in Denmark of 8736 randomly selected people, no evidence was found among 1011 subjects who developed cancer that self-reported stressful major life events had increased their risk for cancer. The assumption of an association between stress and cancer occurrence is popular in the lay public (Baghurst et al, 1992) and among cancer patients (Stewart et al, 2001) and the topic has received intensive research attention in the past. Positive associations between severe stressors (i.e., stressful life events) and cancer risk have frequently been reported from retrospective and casecontrol studies, whereas prospective studies with unbiased data sources for exposure assessment, such as administrative registers, have shown no association between stressors, like death of a spouse, divorce, death of a child or serious illness in a child, and the subsequent risk for cancer (Johansen and Olsen, 1997;Kvikstad et al, 1994).We investigated the association between self-reported experience of stressful life events and the risk for cancer. As opposed to many previous prospective studies (Johansen and Olsen, 1997;Li et al, 2002;Dalton et al, 2004), all analyses were adjusted for a number of lifestyle factors known to be associated with cancer risk. MATERIALS AND METHODSData were obtained from the Copenhagen City Heart Study (Appleyard et al, 1989;Schnohr et al, 2001), a population-based, randomly sampled cohort study which was initiated in 1976. The data for the study reported here stem from the third survey (1991 -1994), when a total of 10 135 people completed a questionnaire and attended a health examination (response rate, 61%). A cancer diagnosis before date of entry resulted in the exclusion of 589 people (6%) from the analysis. A further 810 (8%) were excluded because of missing data on at least one of the included variables, leaving 8736 (86%) eligible for the data analyses.Follow-up for cancer occurrence began on the date of the examination between 10 October 1991 and 16 September 1994, and ended on the date of diagnosis of a first primary cancer, emigration, death or 30 November 2002, whichever came first. Cancer cases were ascertained by linkage with the Danish Cancer Registry, which has registered all cases of malignant neoplasms in Denmark in a population-based system since 1942 (Jensen et al, 1985). Comprehensive evaluation has shown that the Danish Cancer Registry is 95 -99% complete and valid (Storm et al, 1997).Following the question 'Did you ever experience one of the following events?', all people completed a checklist of 12 stressful events. Five of these were job-related (job loss, prospect of promotion which never occurred, long-lasting or serious conflicts with colleagues, superiors or subordinates) and seven events referred to family and adult life (long-lasting or serious illness of a child, educational problems with children, conflicts with adult children, marital problems, personal illness or accidents, illness or death of a family member, economic problems). For the analyses, ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…As opposed to many previous prospective studies (Johansen and Olsen, 1997;Li et al, 2002;Dalton et al, 2004), all analyses were adjusted for a number of lifestyle factors known to be associated with cancer risk.…”

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confidence: 99%

Stressful life events and cancer risk

et al. 2006

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“…Second, if such confounding only appears after child loss (e.g., lifestyle changes including smoking), we would expect the risk of infection-related cancers to be increasingly elevated along with time after loss since it presumably takes some period of time for changed lifestyle factors to influence cancer risk. This was clearly illustrated in a Danish study showing that the risk of smoking-related malignancies increased only beyond 7 years after loss (9).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Still, reviews (1), editorials (2), and commentaries (3) have concluded that the evidence for such an association remains unconvincing. In addition to methodologic limitations, most previous studies have focused on breast cancer (1,(4)(5)(6)(7) or lumped all cancers together (8,9), leaving the potential influence of psychological stress on individual cancer sites undetected. Meanwhile, stress has been shown to be associated with increased levels of cortisol (10) and also immune suppression (11).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk of Infection-Related Cancers after the Loss of a Child: A Follow-up Study in Sweden

et al. 2011

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It is unknown whether severe emotional stress due to loss of a child influences the risk of cancers susceptible to immune modulation such as infection-related cancers. We conducted a historic cohort study in 1990 to 2004 on the basis of the Swedish Multi-Generation Register including 4,687,073 parents. Death of a child was identified through the Causes of Death Register. Poisson regression was used to derive the relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of infection-related cancers, comparing the incidence rates of parents who lost a child with those who never lost a child. A total of 101,306 parents (2%) had lost a child during follow-up, among whom 1,608 subsequently developed infection-related cancers. After adjustment for age, sex, calendar year, educational level, and civil status, the overall RR of 14 cancers studied was 1.07 (95% CI: 1.02-1.12). Parents who lost a child were particularly at a higher risk for cancers potentially associated with human papilloma virus (HPV) infection such as cervical cancer (RR: 1.46; 95% CI: 1.17-1.80). Higher RRs for most cancers were obtained within 5 years after child loss and excess risk for liver and stomach cancers was confined to that period. No association was observed for lymphoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer at any time point after child loss. Although potential confounding by unmeasured factors cannot be ruled out, our findings lend support to the hypothesis that severe life stressors, such as child loss, may raise the risk for several, chiefly HPV-related, cancers. Cancer Res; 71(1); 116-22. Ó2010 AACR.

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“…Vi har data fra en raekke 'bereavement' studier (12,13), og vi har data fra sultkatastrofen i Kina (14) og i Rotterdam under Anden Verdenskrig (15). Disse studier støttede ideen om føtal programmering hvor den tidlige udsaettelse for alvorlig sult undertiden kan føre til kroniske lidelser, som først viser sig meget senere i livet, f.eks.…”

Section: Forskningsresultater Af Stor Betydning På Den Tidunclassified

Løbende nationale reproduktionsregistre og ad hoc data

Olsen

2017

Nor J Epidemiol

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ENGLISH SUMMARYOlsen J. National registration in human reproduction and research oriented ad hoc data. Nor J Epidemiol 2017; 27 (1-2): 27-31.The Nordic countries have a long tradition for collecting and storing of data in reproductive health. These registers cover the entire population and focus on health outcomes. They have gradually been made available for research and if supplemented with data on potential risk factors in reproductive health, they provide a strong basis for research in potential causes of disease in the reproductive system. Several pregnany/birth cohorts have been successful in providing important information in preventive medicine. The most important of these are the Norwegian birth cohort (MoBa) and the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC). Both include about 100,000 newborns. They are based on the rationale that many diseases have causes that start operating in fetal life -fetal programming of diseases -even diseases that manifest themselves later in life (adult diseases). Examples of historic and more recent findings are presented in the following text. Risk of disclosure of personal data is of concern. We have not had examples of such unwanted disclosure and we want to keep this achievement. We clearly have to do many things different and better in the future. Fortunately, technical solutions are available and promising.The registers and the ad hoc data sources have given the Nordic epidemiologists a leading position in reproductive health. To keep that position, we need to plan new cohorts and train more people. If we do that we will be able to continue our collaboration with colleagues all over the world.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Cancer survival in parents who lost a child: a nationwide study in Denmark

Cited by 65 publications

References 22 publications

Stressful life events and cancer risk

Stressful life events and cancer risk

Risk of Infection-Related Cancers after the Loss of a Child: A Follow-up Study in Sweden

Løbende nationale reproduktionsregistre og ad hoc data

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