Causal association between inflammatory bowel disease and 32 site-specific extracolonic cancers: a Mendelian randomization study

BACKGROUND: The risk of extracolonic cancer is increased in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, but it is not clear whether there is a causal relationship. We aimed to systematically estimate the causal relationship between IBD and extracolonic cancers. METHODS: Independent genetic variants strongly associated with IBD were extracted as instrumental variables from genome-wide association study (GWAS) conducted by the International IBD Genetics Consortium including 12,882 IBD patients, 5956 Crohn’s disease (CD) patients, and 6968 ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. Three sources of cancer GWAS were selected as outcome data. Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was conducted to assess the causal effects of IBD on 32 extracolonic cancers. The meta-analysis was applied to assess the combined causal effect with multiple MR results. RESULTS: IBD, CD, and UC have potential causal associations with oral cavity cancer (IBD: OR = 1.180, 95% CI: 1.059 to 1.316, P = 0.003; CD: OR = 1.112, 95% CI: 1.008 to 1.227, P = 0.034; UC: OR = 1.158, 95% CI: 1.041 to 1.288, P = 0.007). Meta-analysis showed a significant positive causal relationship between IBD and breast cancer (OR = 1.059; 95% CI: 1.033 to 1.086; P < 0.0001) as well as a potential causal relationship between CD and breast cancer (OR = 1.029; 95% CI: 1.002 to 1.055; P = 0.032) based on combining multiple MR results. CONCLUSIONS: This comprehensive MR analysis suggested that genetically predicted IBD, as well as its subtypes, may be a risk factor in the development of oral cavity and breast cancer. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12916-023-03096-y.