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No increased risk for spouses of patients with colorectal neoplasia
The spouse of a patient with colorectal neoplasia who shares many of the same lifestyle factors does not necessarily have an increased risk for developing colorectal neoplasia of their own, according to study results.
Anna Krigel, MD, of the division of digestive and liver diseases at Columbia University Medical Center, and colleagues wrote that studying married couples could provide more insight into risk factors for developing colorectal cancer beyond genetic and family history.
“Although couples typically have different genetic backgrounds, spouses are likely to share lifestyle and environmental exposures over the course of years, including similar home environments, geographical locations of residence, dietary exposures, and smoking exposures,” they wrote. “As such, one might expect that an increased CRC incidence would be seen among spouses of patients with CRC; however, studies on this topic have inconsistent results.”
Researchers analyzed data from two neighboring hospitals to find all patients aged at least 50 years who underwent colonoscopy between 2007 and 2017. They matched spouses using a validated algorithm known as the Relationship Inference from the Electronic Health Records, which uses emergency contact information to identify familial relationships. Each patient in the study had a spouse that underwent colonoscopy at either of the two hospitals during the same years (n = 906; 453 pairs).
Investigators identified 296 patients who had any colorectal neoplasia found on colonoscopy. Among patients whose spouse had no neoplasia, the prevalence of adenomas was 32% compared with 34% among patients whose spouse did have colorectal neoplasia.
After adjusting for patient and colonoscopy-related factors, researchers determined that having a spouse with any colorectal neoplasia was not associated with higher risk for colorectal adenoma (OR = 1.07; 95% CI, 95%, 0.77–1.48).
“Given that environmental exposures may be emerging as a more important etiology of CRC in recent years, future research should be directed at determining if the risk of [colorectal neoplasia] among couples may be changing over time,” Krigel and colleagues concluded. – by Alex Young
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.