Relationship of Mammographic Parenchymal Patterns with Breast Cancer Risk Factors and Risk of Breast Cancer in a Prospective Study

Abstract

A prospective study has been conducted on 4954 female volunteers from the Island of Guernsey between 1977 and 1985 to examine risk factors for breast cancer and their relationship to mammographic parenchymal patterns as assessed by Wolfe's method of grading. Up to September 1988, 69 women had developed breast cancer, 11 of whom were prevalent cases being diagnosed within six months of mammography. The remaining incident cases were diagnosed six to 126 months (median 65 months) after entry to the study. Univariate analysis showed that the distribution of Wolfe grades in the population was significantly associated with menopausal status, age, parity, adiposity, age at menarche, age at first childbirth and use of oral contraception, but not with a family history of breast cancer. Multivariate analysis of the data for these variables from either pre- and/or post-menopausal women indicated that age, parity and adiposity were significantly related to Wolfe grade pattern. Age had an opposite effect in pre- compared with postmenopausal women thus the probability of either a P2 or DY pattern increased with increasing age in premenopausal but decreased in postmenopausal women so that incidence peaked around the menopause. Other variables did not achieve significance in the multivariate analysis. Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated for women with P2 or DY patterns using those with N1 or P1 grades as the reference group. The ORs were determined at two censoring times; one at five years and the other to include the most recent follow-up of this cohort. The ORs were adjusted for years of follow-up, age and adiposity and in postmenopausal women adjustment was also made for age at menarche.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

High-risk mammographic parenchymal patterns and anthropometric measures: A case–control study

“…Other studies have reported a relationship between body weight and mammographic parenchymal pattern similar to our own (Brisson et al, 1984;de Waard et al, 1984;Grove et al, 1985;De Stavola et al, 1990;Boyd et al, 1995Boyd et al, , 1998Salminen et al, 1998). Boyd et al (1998) found that, in premenopausal women, weight and BMI were negatively correlated with the area of dense tissue.…”

“…Several studies have shown that increased body weight and body mass index (BMI) are associated with a significant reduction in the percentage of women having a P2 or DY (P2/DY) pattern (Brisson et al, 1984;de Waard et al, 1984;Grove et al, 1985;De Stavola et al, 1990;Boyd et al, 1995Boyd et al, , 1998Salminen et al, 1998). However, overweight women have an elevated risk of developing post-menopausal breast cancer (Tornberg et al, 1988;van den Brandt et al, 1997).…”

Favorable change in mammographic parenchymal patterns and breast cancer risk factors

“…The incidence of favorable mammographic parenchymal pattern was significantly related to old age, large BMI and multiparity. An association between mammographic parenchymal patterns using Wolfe's classification, and the risk of breast cancer has been found in many studies (Wolfe, 1976a;De Stavola et al, 1990;Kato et al, 1995). Women who had a mammographic pattern of severe involvement of ducts or dysplasia had a greater risk of breast cancer than women with parenchyma composed primarily of fat.…”

“…Women who had a mammographic pattern of severe involvement of ducts or dysplasia had a greater risk of breast cancer than women with parenchyma composed primarily of fat. Some studies (De Stavola et al, 1990;Bartow et al, 1995;Beijerinck et al, 1991;Leinster et al, 1988;Saflas and Szklo, 1987) also found that mammographic parenchymal patterns correlate with risk factors of breast cancer. These studies represent cross-sectional data, where the occurrence of mammographic parenchymal patterns and the risk factors of breast cancer were measured simultaneously.…”

Life-course body size and perimenopausal mammographic parenchymal patterns in the MRC 1946 British birth cohort

“…To our knowledge, only one study (Ekbom et al, 1995) to date has investigated the potential role of perinatal characteristics and found a positive but nonsignificant association with birth weight. Inverse associations have been found between contemporaneous measures of adult adiposity and breast density (Brisson et al, 1984;Grove et al, 1985;Whitehead et al, 1985;De Stavola et al, 1990;Gram et al, 1997;Boyd et al, 1998;Sala et al, 1999), but associations with adult height have been less consistent (Brisson et al, 1984;Gram et al, 1997;Boyd et al, 1998;Sala et al, 1999). These studies were, however, limited to anthropometric measures relating to a single point in time, mostly at mammography, thus a detailed study of the effect of growth and life-course changes in body size could not be investigated.…”