Skip to main content
. 2016 Feb 10;16:80. doi: 10.1186/s12885-016-2115-6

Table 2.

Hazard Ratios (HR) and 95 % Confidence Intervals (CI) of cancer risk by quartiles of biomarkers and z-score

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 P-trend
Leukocyte Count
 No of Cases/Total 157/672 146/638 170/630 180/630
 Age-adjusted 1.0 (ref) 1.02 (0.82-1.28) 1.29 (1.03-1.60) 1.64 (1.32-2.03) 0.01
 Multivariable1 1.0 (ref) 1.01 (0.80-1.26) 1.24 (0.99-1.54) 1.56 (1.25-1.94) 0.02
 Multivariable2 1.0 (ref) 0.97 (0.77-1.22) 1.15 (0.92-1.43) 1.31 (1.04-1.66) 0.19
C-reactive protein
 No of Cases/Total 151/639 168/643 163/645 171/643
 Age-adjusted 1.0 (ref) 1.13 (0.90-1.40) 1.22 (0.97-1.52) 1.49 (1.20-1.86) 0.01
 Multivariable1 1.0 (ref) 1.09 (0.88-1.37) 1.17 (0.93-1.46) 1.37 (1.09-1.72) 0.05
 Multivariable2 1.0 (ref) 1.08 (0.87-1.35) 1.11 (0.88-1.39) 1.23 (0.97-1.55) 0.18
Z-score3
 No of Cases/Total 139/642 163/643 168/643 183/642
 Multivariable2 1.0 (ref) 1.18 (0.94-1.49) 1.26 (1.00-1.59) 1.47 (1.16-1.88) <0.01

1Multivariable model adjusted for age, examination year, alcohol intake, cardiorespiratory fitness and energy intake

2Multivariable model adjusted for age, examination year, alcohol intake, cardiorespiratory fitness, energy intake and smoking

3Z-score was computed for each participant based on the subject’s biomarker levels (x), study mean (μ) and study standard deviation (σ)

We computed the individual z-scores thus; z-score = (x - μ)/σ. The combined z-score is the sum of the subject’s individual CRP and leukocyte z-scores