RESEARCH - Hormone risk boosts breast cancer risk for black women

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Hormone risk boosts breast cancer risk for black women

4/19/2006

By: Reuters Health

NEW YORK (Reuters Health), Apr 19 - A large new study shows that black women

face an increased risk of breast cancer with hormone use, and that the risk

is greater for leaner women.

While previous studies have established a link between the long-term use of

hormone therapy and increased breast cancer risk, most of these studies were

conducted with white subjects, Dr. Lynn Rosenberg of the Slone Epidemiology

Center at Boston University and colleagues note.

They therefore investigated the association between breast cancer and

hormone therapy using data from the Black Women's Health Study, which

included 32,559 women. The affect of body mass index was also evaluated.

Women 40 years of age or older completed questionnaires between 1995 and

2003 and were followed for a total of 182,629 person years.

During this time, 615 women developed breast cancer. The data were collected

before the results of the Women's Health Initiative were published, after

which hormone use had dropped sharply.

Dr. Rosenberg's group found that 10 or more years of hormone use increased

breast cancer risk by 58%, and women with BMI's below 25 who used hormones

for 10 years or more had three times the risk of breast cancer.

The researchers found a 23% increased cancer risk for women who used

estrogen only for five to nine years, 41% for those who used estrogen alone

for 10 or more years, and 45% for women who used estrogen plus progestin for

five or more years. Among the leanest women who had taken hormones for 10 or

more years, breast cancer risk was increased by threefold, according to the

report in the April 10th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The greater hormone-cancer association among leaner women may have occurred

because heavier women produce more estrogen from adipose tissue, so they may

be less affected by exogenous estrogens than leaner women, Dr. Rosenberg and

her team suggest.

They conclude: " These results based on data from U.S. black women strengthen

the evidence that use of estrogen alone and estrogen with progestin

increases the risk of breast cancer and that the association is stronger

among leaner women.

Last Updated: 2006-04-19 10:52:42 -0400 (Reuters Health)

Arch Intern Med 2006;166:760-765.

http://www.auntminnie.com/index.asp?Sec=sup & Sub=wom & Pag=dis & ItemId=70616 & wf=849

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Mayo Clinic in Rochester

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