Association between polygenic risk score and age at onset of gastric cancer

Abstract

Objective: To explore the association between polygenic risk score (PRS) and age at onset and early-onset risk of gastric cancer (GC). Methods: Gastric cancer cases from existing genome-wide association study were included, and 112 single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with GC risk were used to derive individual PRS. Analysis of variance and Pearson correlation test was used to depict the relationship between PRS and GC onset age. Cases diagnosed before 50 years old were defined as early-onset gastric cancer. Cox proportional hazard model was used to test the association between PRS and early-onset GC risk with early-onset age as the timescale and low genetic risk (PRS ≤20%) as the reference group. Results: A total of 8 629 cases, including 6 284 males (72.82%) and 2 345 females (27.18%), were included, and the mean age was (60.61±10.80) years old. The PRS was negatively correlated with age of GC onset (r=-0.05, P<0.001). The mean age of gastric cancer cases with low, intermediate, and high genetic risk were (61.68±10.33), (60.53±10.79), (59.80±11.20), respectively. PRS was significantly associated with the risk of early-onset GC in a dose-response manner (intermediate genetic risk: HR=1.19, 95%CI: 1.03-1.39, P=0.022; high genetic risk: HR=1.44, 95%CI: 1.20-1.71, P<0.001). Conclusions: PRS may contribute to the risk of both GC and early-onset GC. PRS can be used as a measurable indicator for risk prediction for occurrence and early-onset of GC.