Long-term or recurrent antibiotic use during childhood or adolescence was associated with a 48% higher risk of incident kidney cancer after adjustment for potential confounders, with adult adiposity partially mediating this association.
Long-term or recurrent antibiotic use (LRAU) during childhood or adolescence was associated with a 48% higher risk of incident kidney cancer.
Adult adiposity partially mediated the association between LRAU during childhood or adolescence and kidney cancer risk.
The study population consisted of 147,605 UK Biobank participants with information on antibiotic use during childhood or adolescence.
Evidence regarding early-life antibiotic use and kidney cancer risk was limited prior to this study.
The authors identified a need for future studies with prospectively recorded prescription and indication data to confirm the findings.
This research suggests that children and adolescents who took antibiotics frequently or for long periods of time may have a higher risk of developing kidney cancer as adults. Using data from over 147,000 participants in the UK Biobank, researchers found that people who reported long-term or recurrent antibiotic use during childhood or adolescence were about 48% more likely to develop kidney cancer compared to those who did not, even after accounting for other factors that could influence cancer risk. The study also explored why this relationship might exist. One potential explanation is that early antibiotic use contributes to higher body fat and obesity in adulthood, which are known risk factors for kidney cancer. However, adult adiposity (body fat measures) only explained a small portion of the association — between 4.3% and 13.2% depending on how body fat was measured — meaning most of the link between antibiotic use and kidney cancer risk remains unexplained by this pathway alone. This research is observational and based on participants' self-reported memories of antibiotic use from childhood, which means the findings should be interpreted cautiously. The authors themselves call for follow-up studies using actual prescription records to confirm these results. Nevertheless, the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that early-life antibiotic use may have long-term health consequences, potentially through disruption of the gut microbiome or other biological mechanisms that warrant further investigation.
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Upload Your LabsLiu J, Chen X, Jia L, Jing X, Pan X, Zhang X, et al.. (2026). Long-Term or Recurrent Antibiotic Use During Childhood or Adolescence and the Risk of Kidney Cancer: A Cohort Study.. Cancer medicine. https://doi.org/10.1002/cam4.72263