Causal relationship between genetically predicted depression and cancer risk: a two-sample bi-directional mendelian randomization

Background Depression has been reported to be associated with some types of cancer in observational studies. However, the direction and magnitude of the causal relationships between depression and different types of cancer remain unclear. Methods We performed the two-sample bi-directional mendelian randomization with the publicly available GWAS summary statistics to investigate the causal relationship between the genetically predicted depression and the risk of multiple types of cancers, including ovarian cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, glioma, pancreatic cancer, lymphoma, colorectal cancer, thyroid cancer, bladder cancer, and kidney cancer. The total sample size varies from 504,034 to 729,150. Causal estimate was calculated by inverse variance weighted method. We also performed additional sensitivity tests to evaluate the validity of the causal relationship. Results After correction for heterogeneity and horizontal pleiotropy, we only detected suggestive evidence for the causality of genetically predicted depression on breast cancer (OR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.03–1.15, P = 0.0022). The causal effect of depression on breast cancer was consistent in direction and magnitude in the sensitivity analysis. No evidence of causal effects of depression on other types of cancer and reverse causality was detected. Conclusions The result of this study suggests a causative effect of genetically predicted depression on specific type of cancer. Our findings emphasize the importance of depression in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer.