Age at Menarche as a Navigator of Gallbladder Cancer: A Case-control Study
XC01-XC03
Correspondence
Dr. RN Mishra,
Centre of Biostatistics, Institute of Medical Sciences,
BHU, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
E-mail: rnmishra_prem@rediffmail.com; durgeshshukla93@gmail.com
Introduction: Age at menarche is said to be a risk factor for Gallbladder Cancer (GBC). The available research about the association of age at menarche with GBC, by taking a cut-off age of 13 years, is neither uniform nor consistent and at best inconclusive.
Aim: To evaluate the association between age at menarche and the risk of GBC, based on cut-off age of 13 years and treating age at menarche as a continuous variable.
Materials and Methods: A hospital based case-control study was conducted on 92 female patients and 92 female controls. The data was collected from the Department of Surgical Oncology, Sir Sunderlal (SS) Hospital, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India during the period of October 2018 to June 2019. Logistic regression analysis was performed and Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with its 95% CI (Confidence Interval) was obtained.
Results: In the present study, the mean age of GBC cases and control were 56.84±8.74 years and 51.21±6.37 years, respectively. With the reference category of menarche age, the females with menarche age >13 years were insignificantly at lower risk of incidence of GBC (AOR=0.569; 95% CI: 0.263-1.233). But when age at menarche was considered as a continuous variable; the AOR was significantly lower among females found decreasing with increasing age at menarche (AOR=0.798; 95% CI: 0.666-0.955).
Conclusion: This exercise indicates, using a reference category of continuous measurements obtained result may be inconclusive with an influence of subjective decision making so it is suggested to prefer the recorded discrete continuous value for the analysis procedure.