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Updated: Oct 6, 2025

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Published on: March 22, 2024
Pre-diagnostic telomere length and colorectal cancer risk
Keming Yang1, Jennifer Prescott2, Aditi Hazra3
1Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Background:
Progressive telomere shortening may be related to genomic instability and carcinogenesis. Prospective evidence relating telomere length (TL) with colorectal cancer (CRC) risk has been limited and inconsistent.
Methods:
We examined the association between pre-diagnostic peripheral blood leukocyte TL and CRC risk in two matched case-control studies nested within the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS). Relative leukocyte TL was measured using qPCR among 356 incident CRC cases and 801 controls (NHS: 186/465, HPFS: 170/336).
Results:
We did not find a significant association between pre-diagnostic TL and CRC risk [in all participants, multivariable-adjusted odds ratio (OR) (95% CI) for TL Quartile 1 (shortest) vs. Quartile 4 (longest) = 1.36 (0.85, 2.17), P-trend = 0.27; OR (95% CI) per 1 SD decrease in TL = 1.12 (0.92, 1.36)].
Conclusions:
Our prospective analysis did not support a significant association between pre-diagnostic leukocyte TL and CRC risk.
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