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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Thyroid Endocrinology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2024.1401458

Causal effects of autoimmune diseases on thyroid cancer: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Provisionally accepted
Wenfang Peng Wenfang Peng Bojin Xu Bojin Xu Haiping Zhou Haiping Zhou Juan Du Juan Du Xiaoxu Ge Xiaoxu Ge Shan Huang Shan Huang *
  • Tongren Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Although numerous studies had revealed associations between autoimmune diseases (AIDs) and thyroid cancer (TC), the potential causal associations between the two remain poorly defined.Methods: Using five approaches, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses were carried out to determine the causal effects of 12 major AIDs on risk of TC. The sensitivity analyses were conducted to verify the reliability of the analysis. The reverse MR analysis was performed to evaluate the possibility of reverse causation.The results showed a significant causal association of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) on the risk of TC. Genetically predicted PBC elevated the risk of TC (OR = 1.46, 95% CI = 1.06-2.02, p = 0.021). The risk of TC was also increased by genetically predicted SLE (OR = 6.52, 95% CI = 1.38-30.84, p = 0.018) with heterogeneity. After outlier-corrected analyses, the results still suggested that genetically predicted SLE increased the risk of TC (p = 0.019). No evidence of a causal relationship between the remaining 10 AIDs and TC was observed. No reverse causal effects of TC on AIDs were found in reverse MR analysis.These findings support a significant causal association of SLE/PBC on the increased risk of TC, indicating that patients with SLE/PBC should be under a close monitoring of TC.

    Keywords: autoimmune disease, thyroid cancer, Mendelian randomization, causality, systemic lupus erythematosus, primary biliary cirrhosis

    Received: 15 Mar 2024; Accepted: 18 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Peng, Xu, Zhou, Du, Ge and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shan Huang, Tongren Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.