In a recent study published in eBioMedicine , researchers investigated the causal association between epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) risk or survival and insomnia. Study: Impact of insomnia on ovarian cancer risk and survival: a Mendelian randomization study. Image Credit: Gladskikh Tatiana / Shutterstock.
com EOC is a major cause of death due to cancer in women, as it claimed nearly 13,000 lives in the United States alone in 2022. The early detection of EOC remains challenging due to the lack of specific symptoms that are not evident until advanced stages. EOC is also associated with a high recurrence rate.
Thus, there remains an urgent need to identify both modifiable and prognostic risk factors that can facilitate the early detection of EOC to improve patient outcomes. Sleep disorders, for example, are known to increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancers, as well as negatively affect their prognoses. Sleep is among the most cyclic and essential human physiological functions.
It is intricately involved in endocrine, metabolic, and immunoregulatory pathways, all of which are also implicated in various cancers. These shared pathways may account for the increased risk of sleep disturbances among cancer patients, with insomnia being the most prevalent sleep disorder in this population. In fact, up to 60% of patients with EOC also suffer from insomnia.
Previous studies have shown that insomnia and circadian disruption, the latter of which often arise due to night shift work,.
