Baker Jennifer L, Gordon-Dseagu Vanessa L Z, Voortman Trudy, Chan Doris, Herceg Zdenko, Robinson Sian, Norat Teresa, Croker Helen, Ong Ken, Kampman Ellen
Center for Clinical Research and Prevention, Copenhagen University Hospital-Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark.
World Cancer Research Fund International, London, England, UK.
Health Open Res. 2025 Mar 14;6:16. doi: 10.12688/healthopenres.13748.2. eCollection 2024.
As the global population ages, and rates of modifiable risk factors for cancer change, cancer incidence and mortality continue to increase. While we understand many modifiable risk factors related to diet, nutrition, bodyweight, and physical activity in adulthood that influence cancer risk, how exposure during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood impacts cancer risk is less clear. This is partly because the timeline from initial mutation to cancer development and diagnosis can span several decades. This long latency period creates methodological, ethical, and financial issues; as well as resource and feasibility challenges in the design, implementation, and data analysis of lifecourse studies. As such, the large majority of lifecourse studies are observational, often using recall data which has inherent bias issues. Concurrently, a new research era has begun, with mature birth cohort studies that are phenotyped/genotyped and can support studies on adult cancer risk. Several studies and consortia contain information spanning the lifecourse. These resources can support association, mechanistic and epigenetic investigations into the influences of multi-disciplinary (e.g. genetic, behavioural, environmental) factors, across the lifecourse and critical time periods. Ultimately, we will be able to produce high-quality evidence and identify how/when early life risk factors impact cancer development and survival.
随着全球人口老龄化，以及癌症可改变风险因素的发生率发生变化，癌症的发病率和死亡率持续上升。虽然我们了解成年期许多与饮食、营养、体重和身体活动相关的可改变风险因素会影响癌症风险，但儿童期、青少年期和青年期的暴露如何影响癌症风险尚不清楚。部分原因是从初始突变到癌症发展和诊断的时间跨度可能长达数十年。这种较长的潜伏期带来了方法学、伦理学和财务方面的问题；以及在生命历程研究的设计、实施和数据分析中的资源和可行性挑战。因此，绝大多数生命历程研究都是观察性的，通常使用存在固有偏差问题的回忆数据。与此同时，一个新的研究时代已经开始，有成熟的出生队列研究，这些研究进行了表型分型/基因分型，能够支持对成人癌症风险的研究。一些研究和联盟包含了跨越生命历程的信息。这些资源可以支持对多学科（如遗传、行为、环境）因素在整个生命历程和关键时期的影响进行关联、机制和表观遗传学研究。最终，我们将能够产生高质量的证据，并确定早期生活风险因素如何/何时影响癌症的发展和生存。
