Relationship between breastfeeding factors and breast cancer in women referred to Seyed Al-Shohada Hospital in Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Background:Breast cancer is the most common malignancy and a major cause of cancer deaths among women. Breastfeeding is presented as a probable protective factor against breast cancer, however, the effect of different breastfeeding patterns and duration of breastfeeding on this factor is not well determined. Thus, the aim of this research was to evaluate factors related to breastfeeding and breast cancer.Materials and Methods:This case–control study was conducted on 98 women with breast cancer and 198 healthy women who were selected through systematic random sampling method. Studied variables included demographic characteristics, reproduction characteristics, duration of breastfeeding, and breastfeeding pattern. The study variables were measured using a researcher-made questionnaire through self-report method. The two groups were matched in terms of place of residence and age. The data analysis was performed using logistic regression.Results:A relationship was observed between breast cancer and marital status (P = 0.04), education level (P = 0.02), individuals’ perspectives of their economic status (P = 0.001), and lack of breastfeeding (P = 0.006). However, no relationship was found between breast cancer and reproductive factors. Moreover, multiple logistic regression analysis results showed that breast cancer only had a relationship with individuals’ perspectives of their economic status with OR of 0.31 (95% CI: 0.16–0.59).Conclusions:The results showed that there was no relationship between breast cancer and reproductive factors and breastfeeding pattern. Due to the difference between the findings of this research and other researches, genetic, epigenetic, and cultural differences must be considered in the evaluation of risk factors for breast cancer.

Does marital status correlate with the female breast cancer risk? A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

“…Among the case-control studies, 19 studies [12,21,24,27,30,32,33,35,37,41,43,44,46,48,54,55,62,64,65] were rated one star for the item of representativeness of the cases since they selected consecutive eligible cases in a defined area over a defined period. However, selection bias was still possible as only 12 studies recruited controls from the same community as the cases, while the remaining studies either used a hospital-based design [22][23][24]27,28,[30][31][32]35,39,[42][43][44][45]47,48,50,52,53,[55][56][57]59,60,63,65] or provided no description of the source [25,26,29,…”

“…According to the results of the cohort study [11], the breast cancer risk in widowed people did not differ from that in married people (relative risk (RR) = 0.98; 95% CI: 0.93 to 1.03). The analysis of the 13 case-control studies [12,14,21,35,37,40,[43][44][45]52,61,64,65] yielded a similar combined OR of 0.96 (95% CI: 0.86 to 1.08) with moderate between-study heterogeneity (I 2 = 46%, 95% CI: 0% to 72%). Subgroup analyses did not identify any statistically significant association between being widowed and the breast cancer risk.…”

“…No eligible cohort study was included in this comparison. In the 41 case-control studies [12,14,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]29,[31][32][33][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64], a 20% risk increase (OR = 1.20; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.07 to 1.35) for breast cancer was detected in the unmarried women versus the married women, with considerable heterogeneity (I 2 = 82%; 95% CI: 77% to 87%). The meta-regression identified geographic region as a potential source of heterogeneity (P = 0.004) (S2 File).…”

“…Divorced versus married women. One cohort study [11] investigated the association between divorced status and the breast cancer risk and provided an RR of 1.04 (95% CI: 0.99 to 1.09), while 15 case-control studies [12,14,21,26,35,37,40,[43][44][45]52,59,61,64,65] yielded a nonsignificant pooled OR of 1.16 (95% CI: 0.96 to 1.39; I 2 = 80%, 95% CI: 67% to 87%). The meta-regression showed that geographic region (P = 0.017) and publication year (P = 0.024) were significantly associated with the effect estimates and may have been the causes of heterogeneity (S2 File).…”

“…Lifelong single versus married women. Two cohort studies [11,13] investigated the association between lifelong single status and the breast cancer risk and provided an OR of 1.10 (95% CI: 1.04 to 1.16; I 2 = 0%, 95% CI: 0% to 23%), while 25 case-control studies [14,21,25,26,28,30,32,[34][35][36][37]39,40,[42][43][44][45]47,51,52,59,61,62,64,65] yielded an OR of 1.24 (95% CI: 1.05 to 1.45; I 2 = 69%, 95% CI: 54% to 80%). The subgroup analysis according to control…”