Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Publication Date

2-1-2023

Journal

Cancer Causes Control

Abstract

PURPOSE: Outdoor light at night (LAN) can result in circadian disruption and hormone dysregulation and is a suspected risk factor for some cancers. Our study is the first to evaluate the association between LAN and risk of endometrial cancer, a malignancy with known relationship to circulating estrogen levels.

METHODS: We linked enrollment addresses (1996) for 97,677 postmenopausal women in the prospective NIH-AARP cohort to satellite imagery of nighttime radiance to estimate LAN exposure. Multivariable Cox models estimated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for LAN quintiles and incident endometrial cancer overall (1,669 cases) and endometrioid adenocarcinomas (991 cases) through follow-up (2011). We tested for interaction with established endometrial cancer risk factors.

RESULTS: We observed no association for endometrial cancer overall (HR

CONCLUSION: Our study did not find an association between outdoor LAN and endometrial cancer risk, but was limited by the inability to account for individual-level exposure determinants. Future studies should consider approaches to improve characterization of personal exposures to light.

Keywords

Humans, Female, Prospective Studies, Diet, Risk Factors, Endometrial Neoplasms, Carcinoma, Endometrioid, Light, Lighting, Circadian Rhythm, Endometrial Neoplasms, Cancer, Environmental Epidemiology

DOI

10.1007/s10552-022-01632-4

PMID

36222982

PMCID

PMC10236480

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

6-2-2023

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Author MSS

Published Open-Access

yes

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.