Systemic inflammation markers and cancer incidence in the UK Biobank

Systemic inflammation markers have been linked to increased cancer risk and mortality in a number of studies. However, few studies have estimated pre-diagnostic associations of systemic inflammation markers and cancer risk. Such markers could serve as biomarkers of cancer risk and aid in earlier identification of the disease. This study estimated associations between pre-diagnostic systemic inflammation markers and cancer risk in the prospective UK Biobank cohort of approximately 440,000 participants recruited between 2006 and 2010. We assessed associations between four immune-related markers based on blood cell counts: systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), and risk for 17 cancer sites by estimating hazard ratios (HR) using flexible parametric survival models. We observed positive associations with risk for seven out of 17 cancers with SII, NLR, PLR, and negative associations with LMR. The strongest associations were observed for SII for colorectal and lung cancer risk, with associations increasing in magnitude for cases diagnosed within one year of recruitment. For instance, the HR for colorectal cancer per standard deviation increment in SII was estimated at 1.09 (95% CI 1.02–1.16) in blood drawn five years prior to diagnosis and 1.50 (95% CI 1.24–1.80) in blood drawn one month prior to diagnosis. We observed associations between systemic inflammation markers and risk for several cancers. The increase in risk the last year prior to diagnosis may reflect a systemic immune response to an already present, yet clinically undetected cancer. Blood cell ratios could serve as biomarkers of cancer incidence risk with potential for early identification of disease in the last year prior to clinical diagnosis. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10654-021-00752-6.