Background: Most studies of plasma adiponectin (APN) and mortality among community-dwelling elderly focus on cardiovascular disease, but data on the relationship between plasma APN and cancer mortality is exiguous. We investigated whether APN is associated with cancer mortality in community-dwelling elderly people.

Methods: We conducted a case-cohort study within the New Integrated Suburban Seniority Investigation (NISSIN) Project using a randomly drawn sub-cohort of 697 subjects (351 men and 346 women; mean age 64.5 [standard deviation, 0.5] years) among whom we compared cases of all-cause death ( n = 269) and cancer death ( n = 149) during a mean follow-up duration of 10.8 (standard deviation, 3.7) years. Associations between APN and mortality were assessed using weighted Cox regression analyses.

Results: We observed significant positive associations between the APN concentration and cancer death in the first and third APN tertiles compared with the second APN tertile (hazard ratio [HR]_{T1 vs T2}, 1.67; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.00–2.79 and HR_{T3 vs T2}, 2.10; 95% CI, 1.30–3.40). Further adjustment for possible confounders attenuated the association (HR_{T1 vs T2}, 1.63; 95% CI, 0.93–2.84 and HR_{T3 vs T2}, 2.10; 95% CI, 1.26–3.50). A similar but weaker association was seen for all-cause mortality (multivariate HR_{T1 vs T2}, 1.45; 95% CI, 0.95–2.21 and HR_{T3 vs T2}, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.01–2.25).

Conclusion: Plasma APN and cancer mortality have a significant relationship among community-dwelling elderly people, which warrants further study.