Approved Research

Association of genetic and lifestyle factors with the risk of intracranial aneurysm.

Lay summary

As aneurysmal rupture is the main event leading to the occurrence of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and it often results in high disability or death rates, the management unruptured intracranial aneurysm (UIA) for preventing ruptured intracranial aneurysms (RIA) is crucial. In terms of non-genetic factors, most of the existing studies investigated the influence of some non-genetic factors, such as lifestyle, on intracranial aneurysms (IAs). The influence of non-genetic factors on the occurrence and development of intracranial aneurysm (IA) under different genetic risk (GR) is still unclear.

Here, we expect to conduct this study in three years, after obtaining permission from the UK-Biobank Steering Committee. Our aim is to construct an IA-polygenic risk scores(IA-PRS) for IAs using the results of the currently published genome-wide association study (GWAS) analysis and UK Biobank which was categorized as three levels: low (quintile 1), intermediate (quintiles 2-4), or high (quintile 5). The group with ideal lifestyle and low GR (quintile 1 of IA-PRS) was compared to explore whether GR changes the risk of occurrence and development of IA and whether lifestyle under different GR will change the risk of genetic susceptibility of IAs.

This study is based on the patients with IA among the 500,000 participants of UK Biobank, focusing on their GR and lifestyle, in order to carry out intervention measures as soon as possible in the process of disease occurrence and development, reduce the incidence of IA as much as possible and improve the overall quality of life of patients with IAs.