517P Extent of environmental and heritability effects on cancer

Abstract

Aim/Background: Cancer is one of the major killer diseases throughout the world. Cancer effected people are increasing very rapidly in the developed countries as well as developing countries. Usually causes of cancer have already been known in the world, however it's still unknown epidemiologically that what's the extent of heritability and environmental effects on cancer diseases. To the best of knowledge no research has been conducted on cancer diseases in Sylhet, Bangladesh, therefore we aim to conduct a cross-sectional study on cancer patients to know the extent of heritability (blood connected people who have already been suffered by cancer) and environmental (Body Mass Index, exercise, food preferences etc.) effects on cancer. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to collect the data of this study. Data were collected using a purposive sampling named 'snowball sampling' based on a semi-structured questionnaire from the cancer patients visiting home/hospital/oncologists' chamber. We have collected data total two months and we found 140 patients. Descriptive statistical tools were used for univariate analysis and Partial Least Squares Path Model (PLSPM) was used for multivariate analysis. Results:We found ratio of male and female patients are 1:1. Results show that average age of male is 54 years and female is 48 years; average BMI of male is 23.91 and female is 24.38. We also found that almost 50 patients are taking therapy per month in the different hospitals in Sylhet city. Most of the Male patients have been suffering by lung and stomach cancer followed by throat and liver. And most of the female patients have been suffering by breast cancer followed by stomach, ovary and liver cancer. The results of PLSPM show that extent of environmental effect (path coefficient = 0.32) is more than the heritability effect (path coefficient = 0.17). These revealed that higher BMI, less exercise, and taking more junk food and meat might be the more influential factors for cancer. We also found that cancer of mother and sister might be the cause of cancer of any individual. Conclusions:We may conclude that the extent of environmental effect is higher than that of heritability effect.