¹ Institut Municipal d’Investigació Mèdica, Barcelona, and CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain
² School of Medicine, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Alacant, Spain
³ Hospital Son Dureta, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
⁴ Hospital Universitari d’Elx, Alacant, Spain
⁵ Hospital Universitari de la Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona, Spain
⁶ Hospital Universitari del Mar, Barcelona, Spain
⁷ Preventive Medicine & Public Health Educational Unit, UPF-IMAS-ASPB, Barcelona, Spain
⁸ School of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
⁹ Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor M Porta
Clinical & Molecular Epidemiology of Cancer Unit, Institut Municipal d’Investigació Mèdica (IMIM), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Carrer del Dr Aiguader 88, E-08003 Barcelona, Spain; mporta{at}imim.es

Background: No studies have investigated the relation between K-ras mutations and dietary factors in exocrine pancreatic cancer (EPC), and fewer than 10 studies have done so in other neoplasms.

Patients and Methods: Incident cases of EPC were prospectively identified, and interviewed face-to-face during hospital admission. Food and nutrient intakes were measured with a food frequency questionnaire. Logistic regression was used to compare EPC cases (n = 107) with and without K-ras mutations (case-case study).

Results: K-ras mutations were more common among daily consumers of milk and other dairy products than among non-daily consumers: the odds ratio adjusted by total energy, age, sex, smoking, alcohol and coffee consumption (ORa) was 5.1 (95% CI 1.1 to 24.5, p = 0.040). For all dairy products, including butter, the ORa for the medium and upper tertiles of intake were 5.4 and 11.6, respectively (p for trend = 0.023). The ORa for regular coffee drinkers further adjusted by dairy consumption was 4.7 (95% CI 1.1 to 20.7, p = 0.043). K-ras mutated cases reported a lower intake of vitamin E (ORa = 0.2, p for trend = 0.036), polyunsaturated fats and omega 3 fatty acids (ORa = 0.2; p for trend <0.03).

Conclusions: Results support the hypothesis that in EPC exposure to specific dietary components or contaminants may influence the occurrence or persistence of K-ras mutations.

Abbreviations: EPC, exocrine pancreatic cancer; MUFA, monounsaturated fat; PANKRAS II, Multicentre Prospective Study on the Role of K-ras and other Genetic Alterations in the Diagnosis, Prognosis and Aetiology of Pancreatic and Biliary Diseases; PUFA, polyunsaturated fat; RE, retinol equivalents (1 RE = 1 µg = 5 IU of vitamin A); SFFQ, semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire

Related Article

In this issue

Carlos Alvarez-Dardet and John R Ashton
J. Epidemiol. Community Health 2007 61: 561. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]