Effect of alcohol consumption on breast cancer: probabilistic bias analysis for adjustment of exposure misclassification bias and confounders

• Published in: BMC medical research methodology 2023-07, Vol.23 (1), p.157-157, Article 157
• Main Authors: Pakzad, Reza, Nedjat, Saharnaz, Salehiniya, Hamid, Mansournia, Nasrin, Etminan, Mahyar, Nazemipour, Maryam, Pakzad, Iraj, Mansournia, Mohammad Ali
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Alcohol; Alcohol consumption; Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology; Alcohol use; Alcoholism; Bias; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - epidemiology; Case-Control Studies; Causality; Complications and side effects; Confidence intervals; Family medical history; Female; Humans; Medical research; Monte-Carlo sensitivity analysis; Population; Population attributable fraction; Pregnancy; Probabilistic bias analysis; Probability distribution; Questionnaires; Self report; Statistical analysis; Validity
• ISSN: 1471-2288; 1471-2288
• DOI: 10.1186/s12874-023-01978-6

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of alcohol consumption on breast cancer, adjusting for alcohol consumption misclassification bias and confounders. This was a case-control study of 932 women with breast cancer and 1000 healthy control. Using probabilistic bias analysis method, the association between alcohol consumption and breast cancer was adjusted for the misclassification bias of alcohol consumption as well as a minimally sufficient set of adjustment of confounders derived from a causal directed acyclic graph. Population attributable fraction was estimated using the Miettinen's Formula. Based on the conventional logistic regression model, the odds ratio estimate between alcohol consumption and breast cancer was 1.05 (95% CI: 0.57, 1.91). However, the adjusted estimates of odds ratio based on the probabilistic bias analysis ranged from 1.82 to 2.29 for non-differential and from 1.93 to 5.67 for differential misclassification. Population attributable fraction ranged from 1.51 to 2.57% using non-differential bias analysis and 1.54-3.56% based on differential bias analysis. A marked measurement error was in self-reported alcohol consumption so after correcting misclassification bias, no evidence against independence between alcohol consumption and breast cancer changed to a substantial positive association.