Minkyo Song

National Cancer Institute (USA) | NCI · Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics

Background: Recently, anal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) has increased rapidly over time, particularly among older women. As immunosuppression is associated with increased anal cancer risk, a parallel increase in autoimmune conditions may be contributing to this rising trend. Methods: We conducted a population-based case-control study using the Sur...

We aimed to determine the diagnostic value of anti-parietal cell antibodies (anti-PCA), anti-intrinsic factor antibodies (anti-IFA), pepsinogen ratio (PGI/II), and gastrin-17 (G-17) in corpus-restricted atrophic gastritis (CRAG) detected by ELISA (Inova, Biohit). Our study compared 29 CRAG cases against 58 age- and sex-matched controls with mild or...

Sex is an important factor that influences disease development, progression, and treatment. In multiple non-reproductive cancers, sex differences in incidence, progression, treatment response, survival, and other clinical outcomes are observed. Overall, males have a 20% higher chance of developing cancer over their lifetime, and experience worse cl...

Background: Chronic Helicobacter pylori infection may induce gastric intestinal metaplasia (IM). We compared anti-H. pylori antibody profiles between IM cases and non-atrophic gastritis (NAG) controls. Methods: We evaluated humoral responses to 1528 H. pylori proteins among a discovery set of 50 IM and 50 NAG using H. pylori protein arrays. Anti...

Objective Early initiation of smoking is associated with adverse health outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the association of various smoking-related factors with the risk of gastric cancer in a population with a high incidence rate of gastric cancer. Method From 2004 to 2013, Korean adults 40–69 years of age were enrolled in the large-scal...

Few studies have investigated the association of high sensitivity C-reactive protein(hsCRP) levels with site-specific cancer-mortality. This study is aimed to examine the association of hsCRP with overall and site-specific cancer-mortality among Korean using the Health Examinees Study(HEXA) cohort (41,070 men and 81,011 women aged 40 years and over...

Background: Eosinophils exhibit anti-tumor cytotoxic responses in the tumor microenvironment. Some atopic diseases, characterized by elevated peripheral eosinophils, are inversely associated with cancer risk. The balance of atopy and immunity may be estimated by an eosinophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (ELR). This study aims to understand the role of ELR...

Objective: Epidemiological studies indicate that alcohol increases gastric cancer (GC) risk, yet most studies have focused on heavy alcohol intake, leaving other factors understudied. A comprehensive investigation of the effects of the frequency and amount of alcohol intake may help elucidate the GC risk associated with drinking behavior. Methods...

Emerging evidence has indicated a possible link between obesity in early life with subsequent cancer risks, but its association with gastric cancer remains unknown. This study aimed to investigate the association of obesity at ages 18–20 and 35 with the later risk of gastric cancer among the Korean population. Included were 122,724 individuals who...

Introduction: Pernicious anemia (PA) is a risk factor for gastric cancer. Other autoimmune conditions may also contribute. Methods: In a case-control study, we evaluated 47 autoimmune conditions among 35,499 gastric cancers and 200,000 cancer-free controls. Results: Six conditions were associated with increased gastric cancer risk (range of ad...

Background Cancer risk is elevated in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). A comprehensive investigation of cancer risk in older patients (≥66 years of age) is needed, as this understudied population is at high risk. Methods We performed a case-control study using Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results-Medicare data including 1,986,7...

Importance Autoimmune gastritis is an alternative cause of gastric carcinogenesis. This cause may be gaining importance with declining prevalence of chronic Helicobacter pylori infection. Objective To determine the association of prediagnostic autoantibodies to gastric mucosa with gastric cancer (GC) risk. Design, Setting, and Participants This c...

Background The overall incidence of gastric cancer in women is half that in men for most global populations. Sex hormone pathways may be involved in carcinogenesis and estrogens have been postulated to protect women against gastric cancer. Aim To evaluate associations of gastric cancer with estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women. Methods an...

Background Although particulate matter is a known carcinogen, its association with childhood cancer is inconclusive. The present study aimed to examine the association between long-term exposure to particulate matter and childhood cancer. Methods A retrospective cohort was constructed from the claims database of the Korea National Health Insurance...

Background: Previous prospective studies of associations between circulating inflammation-related molecules and pancreatic cancer risk have included limited numbers of markers. Methods: We conducted a case-cohort study nested within the Japan Public Health Center-based Prospective Study Cohort II. We selected a random subcohort (n=774) from a to...

Background Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most common histologic subtype of esophageal cancer globally. The development of squamous cell carcinoma has important inflammatory influences and effects. We, therefore, examined circulating levels of inflammation- and immune-related proteins for associations with ESCC. Methods We used pr...

Background: In Helicobacter pylori-driven gastric cancer, mucosal colonization induces chronic inflammation that may variably progress to cancer. Prospective studies of circulating inflammation-related proteins have suggested weak associations with gastric cancer risk. To assess potential utility as a screening tool in clinical settings, we examin...

Background: The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), a ratio between neutrophil and lymphocyte counts in peripheral blood, is a measure of the balance between systemic levels of inflammation and immunity. NLR has been associated with cancer prognosis, but the role of NLR as a biomarker in carcinogenesis is not well established. Methods: We evaluat...

Introduction: The risk for cancer may be elevated in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) due to chronic inflammation caused by IBD and/or immunosuppressive treatments. A comprehensive investigation of cancer as a complication of IBD in elderly patients is needed, as this population has a high background risk of cancer and are underrepres...

Gastric cancer is preceded by a chronic inflammatory process. Circulating levels of inflammation-related markers may reveal molecular pathways contributing to cancer development. Our study evaluated risk associations of gastric cancer with a wide range of systemic soluble inflammation and immune-response proteins. We performed a case-cohort analysi...

Background Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) positivity is associated with better gastric cancer prognosis and is found in a relatively fixed 9% of tumors worldwide.AimWe aimed to examine the EBV status of gastric adenocarcinomas in a very high-incidence population and to compare prevalence between cardia and non-cardia anatomic subsites.Methods We evaluate...

Background: Around 10% of gastric carcinomas (GC) contain Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA. We characterized the GC-specific antibody response to this common infection, which may provide a noninvasive method to detect EBV-positive GC and elucidate its contribution to carcinogenesis. Methods: Plasma samples from EBV-positive (n = 28) and EBV-negative...

Background and Aims Men develop gastric cancer more frequently than women, yet little is known about the mechanisms underlying this sex difference. Sex steroid hormones may influence gastric cancer risk. We therefore assessed whether major circulating adrenal precursors, androgens and estrogens were associated with gastric cancer in a high-risk Mex...

The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in peripheral blood reflects the balance between systemic inflammation and immunity and is emerging as a prognostic biomarker in many diseases, but its predictive role for mortality in the general population has not been investigated. We analyzed 1999–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey mor...

Background: Burden of cancer mortality is often measured by death counts or mortality rates, but potential years of life lost (PYLL) and PYLL per death may be more useful to estimate the impact of cancer-related deaths occurring at younger ages. Methods: We used U.S. national death certificate data. A total of 45 categories of common cancers wer...

Chronic Helicobacter pylori infection is the major risk factor for gastric cancer (GC). However, only some infected individuals develop this neoplasia. Previous H. pylori serology studies have been limited by investigating small numbers of candidate antigens. Therefore, we evaluated humoral responses to a nearly complete H. pylori immunoproteome (1...

This study aimed to investigate the association of sleep duration and quality with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) among middle-aged and elderly Koreans. Among a total of 74,867 participants (25,069 men and 49,798 women) recruited for the Health Examinees (HEXA) study, adjusted geometric means of hs-CRP level were compared across categ...

p> Background: Autoimmune gastritis is an alternative etiology of gastric carcinogenesis. This mechanism may be an increasingly important cause of gastric cancer with waning prevalence of its primary etiologic factor, chronic Helicobacter pylori infection. However, autoimmune gastritis is an infrequent clinical diagnosis. We hypothesized that gastr...

p> Background: Almost 10% of gastric carcinomas contain Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA, which is not found in other gastrointestinal tract cancers. EBV-positive tumors have distinct clinico-epidemiologic features and are molecularly characterized by recurrent PIK3CA and absent TP53 mutations, JAK2 and PD-L1 / L2 amplifications, and extreme DNA hyperm...

Background: The global trend of obesity, or the “obesity epidemic,” is not confined to adults. The increasing rates of obesity at young age signifies potential burden to our society as a whole, and requires prompt attention. Although emerging evidence has indicated a possible link of obesity in early life to subsequent cancer risks, the association...

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a systemic inflammatory state. Low physical activity (PA) could modify this pathophysiology or act as an independent contributor to inflammation. Previous studies of both conditions have identified altered levels of inflammation- and immune-related proteins based on limited sets of candidate markers. Metho...

Infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is associated with substantially increased incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). This risk may be driven in part by reduced immune control over viral infections in the setting of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), although the lymphomagenic mechanisms are not yet established. We used bead...

Background: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive gastric cancers (GC) have clinicopathologic differences from EBV-negative tumors and lack TP53 mutation. Serological profiles may inform viral contribution to carcinogenesis. Methods: We compared humoral responses of EBV-positive (n=67) and -negative (n=137) GC patients from the International EBV-Gas...

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the predominant histologic subtype of esophageal cancer worldwide. Measurements of circulating inflammation‐related biomarkers may inform etiology or provide non‐invasive signatures for early diagnosis. We therefore examined levels of inflammation molecules for associations with ESCC risk. Using a case‐c...

Background: The associations of multiple autoimmune conditions with gastric cancer may reflect their co-occurrence with autoimmune gastritis and its clinical manifestation pernicious anemia (PA), known risk factors for this malignancy. We analyzed diagnoses in US elderly aged >65 years to investigate the spectrum of these associations and the exten...

Background: The associations of multiple autoimmune conditions with gastric cancer may reflect their co-occurrence with autoimmune gastritis and its clinical manifestation pernicious anemia (PA), known risk factors for this malignancy. We analyzed diagnoses in US elderly aged >65 years to investigate the spectrum of these associations and the exten...

Objectives This study evaluated whether individuals with affected family member adhered to healthy behaviours. Design and setting This was a cross-sectional study of participants selected from health examinees who underwent the national health check-up programme of Korea in 39 centres between 2004 and 2013. Participants The baseline data of 128 5...

Purpose: Autoimmunity is an alternative etiology of gastric inflammation, the initiating event in the gastric carcinogenic cascade. This mechanism may be an increasingly important cause of gastric cancer with the waning prevalence of its primary etiologic factor, chronic Helicobacter pylori infection. Materials and methods: PubMed and EMBASE wer...

Background: Circulating inflammation proteins may be important mediators or markers of carcinogenic mechanisms. There have been few studies with limited numbers of analytes in patients with upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract tumors. We therefore evaluated risk associations of gastric and esophageal cancers with prediagnostic levels of a wide range o...

Purpose of Review Prevalence of Helicobacter pylori, the primary risk factor for gastric cancer, is declining globally. Paralleling this trend, gastric cancer incidence is also decreasing. Historically, the populations most affected by this neoplasia have been males, Asians, and groups with low socioeconomic status. This review provides an update o...

Background and Aim Chronic Helicobacter pylori infection causes gastric mucosal inflammation as an important antecedent of gastric cancer. We aimed to evaluate associations of blood markers of inflammation with gastric intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia in H. pylori‐infected individuals. Methods We compared pre‐treatment serum levels of immune‐ a...

Blood levels of inflammation‐related markers may reveal molecular pathways contributing to carcinogenesis. To date, prospective associations with colorectal cancer (CRC) risk have been based on few studies with limited sets of analytes. We conducted a case‐cohort study within the Japan Public Health Center‐based Prospective Study Cohort II, compari...

Background: This study aimed to estimate the prevalence and trends of participation in physical activity (PA) in Korean adults. Methods: The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES; 2009-2013) and the Korea Community Health Survey (KCHS; 2009-2013) were used to estimate the prevalence of PA. Age standardization was perfor...

Background: Human polyomaviruses have a suspected role in carcinogenesis. In the setting of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, coinfection with MCV polyomavirus is associated with high risk of Merkel cell carcinoma. A role in lymphomagenesis has also been suggested by studies in the general population, but there are no prior studies in i...

Background: Family history may inform risks of gastric cancer and preneoplastic lesions. Methods: We examined associations with history of cancer in first-degree relatives for 307 incident gastric cancer cases among 20,720 male smokers in a prospective study in Finland. Cox regression was used to calculate gastric cancer hazard ratios (HR) and 9...

Background: Serum pepsinogen 1 (SPG1) and anti-Helicobacter pylori serology have been used for gastric risk stratification in Asia. Aim: To assess utility of these markers in a Western population. Methods: SPG1 measurements were available for 21 895 Finnish male smokers in the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. We used Co...

Background: Studies of the familial associations of gastric cancer risk have largely been limited to case-control approaches which are susceptible to recall bias and cannot distinguish temporality. Furthermore, associations with family history could be explained by shared exposure to Helicobacter pylori infection, the most important environmental r...

Aims/hypothesis: The aims of the study were to evaluate the association between type 2 diabetes and the risk of death from any cancer and specific cancers in East and South Asians. Methods: Pooled analyses were conducted of 19 prospective population-based cohorts included in the Asia Cohort Consortium, comprising data from 658,611 East Asians an...

Background: Despite the rapid decline of the incidence and mortality over the past few decades, gastric cancer still remains to be the third leading cause of cancer death and the fifth most common cancer worldwide. Furthermore, the absolute number of gastric cancer cases is increasing globally due to the aging of the world population. With availabl...

This abstract is being presented as a short talk in the scientific program. A full abstract is printed in the Proffered Abstracts section (PR15) of the Conference Proceedings. Citation Format: Minkyo Song, Jae Jeong Yang, Hyuna Sung, Seong-Ho Kong, Hyuk-Joon Lee, Hyung-Ho Kim, Sang Gyun Kim, Han-Kwang Yang, Norie Sawada, Shoichiro Tsugane, Manami I...

Background: To promote appropriate antimicrobial use in bloodstream infections (BSIs), we initiated an intervention program consisting of electronic alerts and automated infectious diseases consultations in which the identification and antimicrobial susceptibility test (ID/AST) results were reported. Methods: We compared the appropriateness of a...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the associations of sleep duration and with metabolic syndrome and its components. A total of 72,673 participants from the Health Examinees Study were analyzed to investigate the association of sleep duration with metabolic syndrome and its components. Using the NCEP-ATP III guideline and multiple logistic r...

Understanding mechanisms underlying smoking-related factors should be prioritized in establishing smoking prevention and cessation policy. The aim of this study was to identify factors significantly associated with smoking initiation and/or smoking cessation as well as the most important determinants of successful smoking cessation in a developed n...

Objectives: Self-rated health is a measure of perceived health widely used in epidemiological studies. Our study investigated the determinants of poor self-rated health in middle-aged Korean adults with diabetes. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted based on the Health Examinees Study. A total of 9759 adults aged 40 to 69 years who repor...

Though a large proportion of cancer survivors are assumed to be commonly affected by sleep disturbance, few studies have focused on short sleep problems and its correlates among Korean cancer survivors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of short sleep in adult cancer survivors from a nationwide population-based sample and to...

Though various factors related to fluctuations in sleep duration have been identified, information remains limited regarding the correlates of short and long sleep duration among the Korean population. Thus, we investigated characteristics that could be associated with short and/or long sleep duration among middle-aged and elderly Koreans. A total...

Background To investigate whether preeclampsia is independently associated with risk of future metabolic syndrome and whether any such primary associations are modified by different ages at first pregnancy. Methods Based on the Health Examinees Study, a cross-sectional analysis was conducted. Data of women (n = 49 780) who had experienced at least...

The age-standardized incidence and mortality rates of gastric cancer have been decreasing worldwide. However, due to the rapid increase in the aging population, the absolute number of cases is actually increasing, and some countries, including Korea, show a divergent trend in the incidence of gastric cancer in younger generations. Gastric cancer is...

During the last few decades, prevalence of obesity has risen rapidly worldwide, markedly in children and adolescents. Epidemiologic studies have associated obesity to several cancer types, yet little is known for the effect of early life exposure to obesity on cancer risk in later life, especially in gastric cancer. Thus, the present study aimed to...

With increases in life expectancy, the focus has shifted to living a healthier, longer life. By concentrating on preventing diseases before occurrence, researchers aim to diminish the increasing gap in medical costs and health inequalities prevalent across many nations. Although we have entered an era of post-genomics, we are still in infancy in te...

Background The incidence and mortality of gastric cancer have declined rapidly over the past few decades, but reverse trends in the young generation's differential between sexes in some races have been reported in recent years. To investigate whether this divergent trend can be observed in Korea, a country with the highest incidence in the world,...

Breast cancer is heterogeneous in clinical behavior by subtypes, but it is unclear how this heterogeneity is related to epidemiological factors. To evaluate the difference in epidemiological factors by breast tumor subtypes, we investigated the associations of epidemiological factors between tumor subtypes in Korea women. From the Seoul Breast Canc...

AimsTo examine whether adulthood and/or childhood sex-specific socio-economic disparities are associated with metabolic syndrome and its components in a developed non-Western setting. Methods Based on the Fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 14 888 people aged 20 years were analysed to evaluate the effect of adult and chi...

Despite the importance of invasive Staphylococcus aureus (ISA) infection, its overall burden in non-selected populations has only been defined in a small number of studies in Europe and North America. To define the characteristics of ISA infections in Korea, we conducted a multi-center cohort study to estimate population-based incidence rates. We c...

To estimate the effect of medical conditions in the population of Korea on breast cancer risk in a case-control study. The cases were 3242 women with incident, histologically confirmed breast cancer in two major hospitals interviewed between 2001 and 2007. The controls were 1818 women each admitted to either of those two hospitals for a variety of...

The 5-year survival rate for breast cancer has increased from 78% during 1993 to 1995 to 90% during 2004 to 2008 among Korean women. Despite such improvement, breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer mortality among women. One-carbon metabolism, which requires adequate supply of methyl group donors and B-vitamins, may affect breast cancer...

Introduction: While the incidence of breast cancer is relatively low in Korean women, the proportion of breast cancer that develops in younger age is much higher than in western countries. Family-based linkage study has focused on the identification of a region which is associated with the age at onset in familial breast cancer. However, genetic fa...

Background Although the role of microRNA’s (miRNA’s) biogenesis pathway genes in cancer development and progression has been well established, the association between genetic variants of this pathway genes and breast cancer survival is still unknown. Methods We used genotype data available from a previously conducted case–control study to investig...

Although a number of experimental studies have suggested the role of lipocalin-2 (LCN2) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in breast cancer progression, limited numbers of epidemiological studies have examined the relationship between the levels of lipocalin-2 and MMP-9 and breast cancer survival. Preoperative serum levels of lipocalin-2 and MM...

Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) has been thought of as a predictor of recurrence or metastasis risk or prognostic markers in cancer. We evaluated whether preoperative serum levels of MMP-2 work as a prognostic biomarker in breast cancer prognosis. Preoperative serum levels of MMP-2 were measured with ELISA in 303 patients with histologically con...

In this era of chronic diseases, large studies are essential in investigating genes, environment, and gene-environment interactions as disease causes, particularly when associations are important but not strong. Moreover, to allow expansion and generalization of the results, studies should be conducted in populations outside Western countries. Here...