Recent studies have shed light on alterations to the proinflammatory tumor microenvironment as a significant carcinogenic mechanism. Despite previous studies on associations between proinflammatory cytokines and lung cancer risk, few studies have been conducted in Asian populations. This study aimed to investigate associations between proinflammatory cytokines and lung cancer risk, considering histological types, in the Korean general population. We carried out a case-cohort study on the Korean National Cancer Center Community (KNCCC) cohort (lung cancer cases: 136, subcohort: 822). Pre-diagnostic serum levels of proinflammatory cytokines (i.e., IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β, IFN-γ, and IL-10) were measured using Quantikine® ELISA. A Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis was conducted. In this study, serum levels of IL-6, IL-1β, and IFN-γ were associated with lung cancer risk. IL-6 was associated with lung cancer, regardless of the histological type. IL-1β had an association only with adenocarcinoma, while IFN-γ had an association only with squamous-cell carcinoma. This study shows associations between serum levels of IL-6, IL-1β, and IFN-γ and lung cancer risk, underscoring the potential of these cytokines to act as risk biomarkers. The utilization of these biomarkers for risk prediction may hold the promise of facilitating the identification of the high-risk population.
Keywords: IFN-γ; IL-1β; IL-6; case-cohort study; cohort; lung cancer; proinflammatory cytokines.