(Press-News.org) Women with dense breasts and no lobular involution were at a higher risk for developing breast cancer than those with non-dense breasts and complete involution, according to a study published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Apart from age, family history, and age at menarche, two additional factors associated with breast cancer risk include mammographic breast density and extent of lobular involution. Lobular involution is the physiological atrophy of the breast epithelium and is known to increase with increasing age.
To determine whether these two factors are independently associated with breast cancer risk, Karthik Ghosh, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic, and colleagues investigated the factors' association with breast cancer risk in a cohort of 2666 women with benign breast disease, followed for a mean of 13.3 years; 172 (6.5%) women subsequently developed breast cancer.
The researchers took their cohort from the larger Mayo Breast Disease cohort, which included 9376 women between the ages of 18 and 85, with no history of breast cancer, who were diagnosed with benign breast disease between 1967 and the end of 1991.
The researchers found that breast density and extent of lobular involution were independent risk factors for breast cancer, and that combined, they pose an even greater risk. The authors write: "Our findings also reveal that having a combination of dense breasts and no lobular involution was associated with higher breast cancer risk than having non-dense or fatty breasts and complete involution."
The researchers write that one of the study's strengths is that it was conducted in a large, well-organized cohort of women; however, limitations include the fact that the study population was predominantly white and representative of the upper Midwest, pointing to the need to conduct research in diverse populations.
In an accompanying editorial, Gretchen L. Gierach, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute, and colleagues, describe lobular involution and mammographic breast density as factors that "hold promise for improving risk prediction, particularly because they reflect the cumulative interplay of numerous genetic and environmental breast cancer risk factors over time."
Future studies, they write, should include larger numbers of patients from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and aim to understand the relationship between involution and epidemiological risk factors such as body mass index. Furthermore, since neither lobular involution nor mammographic breast density are static processes, evaluating changes over time may improve their predictive value.
INFORMATION:
Contact:
Article: Nicole Engler, Public Affairs Consultant, 507-293-3811 Engler.Nicole@mayo.edu
Editorial: NCI Office of Media Relations, 301-496-6641, ncipressofficers@mail.nih.gov
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Two University of Florida researchers and their international colleagues have used mathematical models and maps to estimate the feasibility of eliminating malaria from countries that have the deadliest form of the disease.
Andrew Tatem led a study that appears online today and in the November print edition of the British medical journal The Lancet Malaria Elimination Series.
"People need to know that the money they are spending is having an effect," said Tatem, an assistant professor with joint appointments in UF's geography department, Emerging ...
What's old is new again. That's the lesson that can be taken from the University of Cincinnati-based journal, "Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists," due out Nov. 1.
The annually produced journal, edited since 2006 by Peter van Minnen, UC associate professor of classics, features the most prestigious global research on papyri, a field of study known as papyrology. (Papyrology is formally known as the study of texts on papyrus and other materials, mainly from ancient Egypt and mainly from the period of Greek and Roman rule.)
It's an area of research that ...
Republican claims of political corruption in North Carolina's Democratic Party have made little impact on public opinion among potential voters in the state, according to new polling data analyzed by North Carolina State University researchers. The findings show that highlighting actual corruption is not necessarily an effective electoral strategy.
"The North Carolina Republican party has tried to brand state Democrats as corrupt, but we don't know whether voters respond to this strategy," says Dr. Michael Cobb, an associate professor of political science at NC State. ...
Few fish are famed for their parenting skills. Most species leave their freshly hatched fry to fend for themselves, but not discus fish. Jonathan Buckley from the University of Plymouth, UK, explains that discus fish young feed on the mucus that their parents secrete over their bodies until they are big enough to forage. 'The parental care that they exhibit is very unusual,' says Buckley. Intrigued by the fish's lifestyle, Buckley's PhD advisor, Katherine Sloman, established a collaboration with Adalberto Val from the Laboratory of Ecophysiology and Molecular Evolution ...
28 October 2010 (Geneva, Switzerland) - A report issued today by the International AIDS Society, Universal Access: Right Here, Right Now documents the principal debates around universal access during the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010). The report also takes stock of progress to date and reveals the scale of the future challenge for HIV treatment and prevention at a time when new infections are outstripping those receiving treatment by five to two.
While significant progress has been made towards achieving universal access to HIV prevention, treatment ...
Scientists of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) of MDC and Charité in Berlin-Buch have gained new insights into the development of epithelial cells and their molecular repertoire. Dr. Max Werth, Katharina Walentin and Professor Kai Schmidt-Ott have identified a transcription factor (grainyhead-like 2, Grhl2), which regulates the composition of the molecular "bridges" that link adjacent epithelial cells. The authors were able to demonstrate that Grhl2, via DNA-binding, directly regulates ...
An international team of Mycologists and Ecologists studying Atlantic sea turtles at Cape Verde have discovered that the species is under threat from a fungal infection which targets eggs. The research, published in FEMS Microbiology Letters , reveals how the fungus Fusarium solani may have played a key role in the 30-year decline in turtle numbers.
"In the past 30 years we have witnessed an abrupt decline in the number of nesting beaches of sea turtles worldwide," said Drs. Javier Diéguez-Uribeondo and Adolfo Marco from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas- ...
The change in the ice mass covering Antarctica is a critical factor in global climate events. Scientists at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have now found that the year by year mass variations in the western Antarctic are mainly attributable to fluctuations in precipitation, which are controlled significantly by the climate phenomenon El Nino. They examined the GFZ data of the German-American satellite mission GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment). The investigation showed significant regional differences in the western coastal area of the South ...
DETROIT – For pancreatic cancer patients unable to undergo surgery – the only known cure for this form of cancer – a highly targeted cancer radiation therapy may help slow cancer progression and lessen disease symptoms, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Called stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), the study found it was able to delay pancreatic cancer progression locally, on average, by almost six months.
While, on average, the patients in the study lived about 10 months, one-third lived more than a year.
Without any treatment – surgery, ...
New Rochelle, NY, October 29, 2010—Women experience and interact with their natural surroundings in ways that differ from men. The way in which those differences affect a woman's sense of self, body image, and drive to protect and preserve the environment are explored in a thought-provoking special issue of Ecopsychology, a peer-reviewed, online journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The entire issue is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/eco
Guest Editors Britain Scott, PhD, from the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) and Lisa ...
