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Epidemiology

About the NYU Women's Health Study
Abstracts
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NYU Women's Health Study:
Summary of Research Results and On-Going Projects

The NYUWHS has supported the cohort infrastructure and provided a scientific foundation for a variety of other related research projects. During the last 5-year grant period the NYUWHS research project has spawned 10 funded spin-off studies. These include 6 NIH-funded studies on:

Estrogen-metabolism biomarkers and genes and endometrial cancer risk (PI: Dr. Zeleniuch-Jacquotte)
Endogenous estrogens and colorectal cancer risk (PI: Zeleniuch-Jacquotte)
Serum lignans and endometrial cancer risk (PI: Dr. Zeleniuch-Jacquotte)
Repair of DNA damage and breast cancer risk (PI: Dr. Shore)
Serum vitamin D, related genes and ovarian cancer risk (PI: Dr. Arslan)
Biomarkers for ovarian cancer risk (PI: Dr. Arslan)

In addition, the NYUWHS data and biosamples served as the basis for 4 grants from other sources on DNA repair genes and breast cancer; serum epigenetic markers for the early detection of breast cancer; DNA hypermethylation predating breast cancer diagnosis; and genetic variants and pancreatic cancer (consortium grant). Thus, the NYUWHS study makes it possible to address a number of scientific questions with high-quality prospective data besides the ones proposed in the study itself, since it provides the basic cohort follow-up support for them.

In addition to the major research collaboration between the NYUWHS and the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study (NSHDS), the NYUWHS study has led to a number of additional research collaborations with investigators at other institutions, including ones at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, Harvard University, Oxford University, the Instituto Nazionale Tumori (Milan), Heidelberg University, University of Helsinki, University of Pittsburgh, Oregon State University and University of Buffalo. It has also led to participation in several National Cancer Institute consortia (NCI Cohort Consortium, the InterLymph Consortium, and the PanScan Consortium).

The NYUWHS participates in the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer (PI: S. Smith-Warner). This study pools individual data from a number of prospective studies to obtain more precise estimates of the association of dietary factors with various cancers, including breast, colon, renal and pancreatic cancers. During the grant period the NYUWHS collaborated on a number of Pooling Project publications, including pooled studies of dietary factors (Smith-Warner et al, 2006) in breast (Missmer et al, 2002), ovarian (Genkinger et al, 2006a; Genkinger et al, 2006b; Koushik et al, 2005) and colorectal (Cho et al, 2004) cancer, with more papers in progress. The NYUWHS study has also been part of the Oxford pooled study of the impact of sex hormones on breast cancer risk (Key et al, 2003; EHBCCG, 2002; EHBCCG, 2003).

For more information, please contact:

NYU School of Medicine
Program in Epidemiology & Biostatistics
650 First Avenue, 5th Floor, Rm. 508
New York, NY 10016
Phone: (212) 263-6499
Fax: (212) 263-8570
Online: http://www.med.nyu.edu/womenshealthstudy/

Abstracts

The following abstracts represent some early key findings of the NYU Women's Health Study, an integral part of the study's research today.

Toniolo P, Riboli E, Shore RE, Pasternack BS. Consumption of Meat, Animal Products, Protein, and Fat and Risk of Breast Cancer: A Prospective Cohort Study in New York Epidemiology 1994; 5 (4): 391-397.

Toniolo PG, Levitz M, Zeleniuch-Jacquotte A, Banerjee S, Koenig KL, Shore RE, Strax P, Pasternack BS. A Prospective Study of Endogenous Estrogens and Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal Women. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1995; 87 (3): 190-197.

Zeleniuch-Jacquotte A, Toniolo P, Levitz M, Shore RE, Koenig KL, Banerjee S, Strax P, Pasternack BS. Endogenous Estrogens and Risk of Breast Cancer by Estrogen Receptor Status: a Prospective Study in Postmenopausal Women. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention 1995; 4: 857-860.

For more recent findings, please view the publications listing of the NYU Women's Health Study since 2002.