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