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Causal Relationship Between Anxiety Disorders and Cancers: A Bidirectional Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study
Jingyang Su1, Jialin Zhang2, Jue Wang3
1Department of General Internal Medicine, Tongde Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (Tongde Hospital of Zhejiang Province), Hangzhou, China.
Background:
Anxiety disorders are common psychiatric problems that often accompany cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers.
Methods:
We utilized publicly available summary statistics from large-scale genome-wide association studies, selecting genetic variant loci associated with anxiety disorders and common cancers as instrumental variables (IVs). These IVs underwent quality control according to three underlying assumptions. The results of the Mendelian randomization (MR) study were analyzed using the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method, along with MR-Egger regression and weighted median estimation (WME) methods, to evaluate the bidirectional causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers. Additionally, we conducted heterogeneity and multivariate tests to validate the IVW results.
Results:
The bidirectional Mendelian randomization study revealed no positive causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers. From a genetic perspective, the IVW analysis demonstrated that anxiety disorders are not associated with an increased risk of developing these common cancers (p > 0.05). Reverse MR analysis further revealed no significant causal relationship between common cancers and anxiety disorders (p > 0.05).
Conclusions:
MR analysis results demonstrated no significant causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers.
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