Why the study?
Do high hematocrit levels affect the risk of common human cancers?
Do high hematocrit levels affect the risk of common human cancers?
High hematocrit levels may be causally associated with a decreased risk of prostate and breast cancers, while potentially increasing the risk of certain skin and cervical cancers.
High hematocrit may causally lower prostate and breast cancer risk; hypothesis-generating and should not yet change practice.
Background Previous studies underscore the significance of hematocrit (HCT) in different tumors. It is imperative to conduct further research to explore the relationship between HCT and tumors.Research design and methods This study employed retrospective analysis and Mendelian randomization analysis (MRA) using a sample size of 19,408,959 to explore the relationship between high HCT levels and the risk of the 15 most prevalent malignant tumors. Kaplan-Meier curves were adopted to investigate the relationship between HCT and prognosis of patients with prostate cancer (PCa).Results An elevated HCT level was identified as a protective factor for six cancers, including PCa (odds ratio [OR] < 1.000, p < 0.05), while it was a risk factor for cervical cancer, melanoma, and non-melanoma skin cancer (OR > 1.000, p < 0.05). A potential causal association was found between high HCT levels and a decreased risk of PCa (OR = 0.887, p < 0.05) and breast cancer (BRCA) (OR = 0.893, p < 0.05). Using the in-house cohort, HCT was identified as a protective factor for PCa (p < 0.05).Conclusions This study identified associations between HCT and nine tumors. HCT may serve as a protective factor for the prognosis of patients with PCa.
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Li et al. (2025) studied this question.
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