Objectives: Previous studies that focussed on sleep disturbance have primarily examined specific aspects of sleep disorders rather than considering overall sleep quality. We aimed to investigate different sleep disorders and their combination as risk factors for different types of cancer.
Study design: Prospective cohort study.
Methods: In this prospective cohort study, we included 78,232 participants. A self-reported questionnaire was used to address insomnia, daytime sleepiness, snoring, and sleep duration. Overall sleep quality was evaluated by summarising these four sleep parameters. Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to estimate the hazard ratios and their 95% confidence intervals for determining the effect of the overall sleep-quality score and its components on the risk of incident cancer.
Results: During a median follow-up of 5.67 years, 1266 participants were diagnosed with incident cancer. Compared to participants in the best sleep-quality score group, participants in the worst sleep-quality score group had a higher subsequent risk of overall cancer, and colorectal, breast, uterine or uterine cervical, prostatic, kidney, and bladder cancer. Participants with insomnia and snoring status had an elevated risk of head and neck, breast, uterine or uterine cervical, prostatic, kidney, bladder cancer, and lymphoma.
Conclusions: Poor overall sleep-quality scores as well as poor scores for the scale's components, including insomnia and snoring status, elevated the risk of overall and several specific-site cancers.
Trial registration: Kailuan Study, ChiCTR2000029767. Registered 12 February, 2020-Retrospectively registered, https://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojEN.html?proj=48316.
Keywords: Cancer; Insomnia; Prospective; Risk; Sleep quality; Snoring.
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