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White blood cell count linked to cancer mortality

Posted on: Monday, 30 January 2006, 15:18 CST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of a new study show that individuals with high white blood cell (WBC) counts appear to have a higher risk of death from all types of cancer, a multicenter team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Anoop Shankar of the National University of Singapore and colleagues conducted a study of 3,189 subjects in the Blue Mountains region, west of Sydney, Australia. The subjects were between 49 and 84 years old and free of cancer at study enrollment between January 1992 and December 1994. Vital status was assessed for all subjects as of December 31, 2001.

"Higher WBC count was found to be associated with all cancer mortality," the investigators report. Subjects with the highest WBC counts had a 73% higher risk of cancer death compared with those with the lowest counts. An increase in WBCs can indicate a variety of problems including infection, an allergic reaction or leukemia.

The association between high WBC count and cancer was lower among aspirin users, suggesting a possible protective effect.

Shankar and colleagues surmise that WBC is a "reasonable but nonspecific marker" for inflammation.

Other conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, may influence the association, but the researchers believe that "results of this study support the hypothesis of an association between high WBC count and cancer mortality."

They suggest that "local inflammatory processes that have long been known to be associated with tumor progression may be reflected in the systemic inflammatory marker of higher WBC count."

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, January 23, 2006.

Source: REUTERS

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