Menopausal Hormone Therapy and Risk of Clinical Breast Cancer Subtypes

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease with subtypes that may vary in their etiologies. Menopausal hormone therapy has been associated more strongly with lobular and tubular than ductal histologic types and with tumors that are smaller, hormone receptor -positive, and of lower grade. At the same time, correlations have been observed between histology and clinical characteristics. To identify those tumor subtypes most strongly associated with hormone therapy use, it is necessary to disentangle these interrelationships. Methods: Based on 3,464 postmenopausal breast cancer cases and 6,657 controls from the population-based Mammary carcinoma Risk factor Investigation study, we used polytomous logistic regression to evaluate associations between hormone therapy use and risk of invasive breast cancer subtypes. We assessed variations in risk for selected tumor characteristics among histologic and hormone receptor subtypes, both overall and for specific hormone therapy regimens.

Population attributable risk of invasive postmenopausal breast cancer and breast cancer subtypes for modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors

“…Subjects' reproductive and menstrual histories were ascertained, as were their education, occupational status and mammography use. Invasive tumor hormone receptor status was abstracted from pathology reports, generally determined according to the method described by Remmele and Stegner [21] using immunohistochemical testing and a 12-point immunoreactive score [15].…”

“…and progesterone receptor (PR) status of the tumor [13][14][15][16][17]. Furthermore, prevalences of these subtypes have been shown to vary between ethnic and racial groups [18].…”

Study of serum LDH and GGT levels in carcinoma breast

“…Breast cancer may arise from the epithelium of the duct system anywhere from the nipple end of the major lactiferous ducts to the terminal duct unit [7], which is in the breast lobule. Breast cancers are classified into those that have not penetrated the basement membrane (non-invasive) ductal carcinoma in situ, Lobular carcinoma in situ and those that have (invasive) infiltrating invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, medullary carcinoma, and colloid carcinoma [8].…”

Impact of Body Mass Index on Prognostically Relevant Breast Cancer Tumor Characteristics

“…Furthermore, histological BC subtypes may differ in their associations with established BC risk factors [8,9,10,11]. The few studies exploring the association between body size and aggressive triple-negative BC (TNBC) reported largely inconsistent results [12].…”