ArticleClinical epigenetics2024
Pre-diagnosis blood DNA methylation profiling of twin pairs discordant for breast cancer points to the importance of environmental risk factors.
Article in Clinical epigenetics, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Relationship Between Climate Change and Breast Cancer and Its Management and Preventative Implications in South Africa.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Pooled it
- Long-term impact of stressful life events on breast cancer risk: A 36-year genetically informed prospective study in the Finnish Twin Cohort.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Stress, breast cancer, and the epigenetic echo: moving beyond the polygenic narrative?Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Association of menarche age with macrosomia and modified effect from dietary pattern: findings from the Chinese pregnant women.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Field cancerization, accelerated aging, and immunosuppression: the rapid rise of hormone-sensitive and early-onset breast cancer.NPJ breast cancer · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAssessment of breast cancer (BC) risk generally relies on mammography, family history, reproductive history, and genotyping of major mutations. However, assessing the impact of environmental factors, such as lifestyle, health-related behavior, or external exposures, is still challenging. DNA methylation (DNAm), capturing both genetic and environmental effects, presents a promising opportunity. Previous studies have identified associations and predicted the risk of BC using DNAm in blood; however, these studies did not distinguish between genetic and environmental contributions to these DNAm sites. In this study, associations between DNAm and BC are assessed using paired twin models, which control for shared genetic and environmental effects, allowing testing for associations between DNAm and non-shared environmental exposures and behavior.
resultsPre-diagnosis blood samples of 32 monozygotic (MZ) and 76 dizygotic (DZ) female twin pairs discordant for BC were collected at the mean age of 56.0 years, with the mean age at diagnosis 66.8 years and censoring 75.2 years. We identified 212 CpGs (p < 6.4*10
conclusionWhile causal effects of DNAm on BC risk are rare, most of the identified CpGs associated with the risk of BC appear to be independent of genetic effects. This suggests that DNAm could serve as a valuable biomarker for environmental risk factors for BC, and may offer potential benefits as a complementary tool to current risk assessment procedures.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.