Urine profile linked to future cancer risk in healthy adults
Five-year cancer risk ranged from 0.18% in the lowest urine-score group to 32% in the highest.
Our read
Biomarkers- Studied:
- Cohort study of 5,436 healthy asymptomatic adults, five years, against lowest urine-score group
- What changed:
- Cancer risk was 32% in the highest urine-score group against 0.18% in the lowest
- The catch:
- Urine-guided screening performance was estimated, not measured in a screening trial
- Why it’s aging research:
- It bears on staying healthy in midlife and later life.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Healthy adults without symptoms in the Netherlands—5,436 participants in the Lifelines Cohort Study—were studied in an observational case-cohort analysis. Of these, 827 developed cancer within five years of urine collection.
The researchers measured urinary glycosaminoglycans, long sugar molecules, and combined the measurements into a score. Higher scores were associated with later cancer after accounting for established risk factors. Observed five-year cancer risk was 0.18% in the low-risk group, 2.3% in the intermediate group, 7.6% in the high group and 32% in the very-high group. The analysis estimated that targeting screening to the high-risk group would detect 54% of cancers, with a 17% false-positive rate.
Why it matters
Age is an established factor in deciding who receives cancer screening. The authors suggested incorporating urine profiles into personalized surveillance to help identify people current screening guidelines miss.
Caveats
The reported screening performance was an estimate, not an outcome from a screening trial. The findings came from healthy, symptom-free adults in one Dutch cohort.
The paper
Multi-cancer risk prediction in asymptomatic adults using urinary glycosaminoglycan profiling
Lund University 1 Lund; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute 3 Boston
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, Nov 6, 2026, CC BY-NC-ND
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