Breast asymmetry and predisposition to breast cancer.



Scutt, Diane, Lancaster, Gillian A and Manning, John T
(2006) Breast asymmetry and predisposition to breast cancer. Breast cancer research : BCR, 8 (2). R14-.

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Abstract

<h4>Introduction</h4>It has been shown in our previous work that breast asymmetry is related to several of the known risk factors for breast cancer, and that patients with diagnosed breast cancer have more breast volume asymmetry, as measured from mammograms, than age-matched healthy women.<h4>Methods</h4>In the present study, we compared the breast asymmetry of women who were free of breast disease at time of mammography, but who had subsequently developed breast cancer, with that of age-matched healthy controls who had remained disease-free to time of the present study. The study group consisted of 252 asymptomatic women who had normal mammography, but went on to develop breast cancer. The control group were 252 age-matched healthy controls whose mammograms were also normal and who remained free of cancer during the study period. Breast volume was calculated from the cranio-caudal mammograms for each group, and the relationships between asymmetry, established risk factors and the presence or absence of breast cancer were explored.<h4>Results</h4>The group who went on to develop breast cancer had higher breast asymmetry than controls (absolute asymmetry odds ratio 1.50 per 100 ml, confidence interval (CI) 1.10, 2.04; relative asymmetry 1.09, CI 1.01, 1.18), increased incidence of family history of breast cancer, lower age at menarche, later menopause, later first pregnancies and a higher frequency of high risk breast parenchyma types. Conditional logistic regression analysis showed that breast asymmetry, height, family history of breast cancer, age at menarche, parenchyma type and menopausal status were significant independent predictors of breast cancer. When age at menopause was included in the model for the subgroup of post-menopausal women, absolute breast fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and relative breast FA remained significant effects.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Breast asymmetry was greater in healthy women who later developed breast cancer than in women who did not.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Published: 20 Mar 2006. 7 pages (page numbers not for citation purposes).
Uncontrolled Keywords: Breast, Humans, Breast Neoplasms, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Mammography, Organ Size, Confidence Intervals, Odds Ratio, Retrospective Studies, Female, Functional Laterality
Subjects: ?? R1 ??
Divisions: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 02 Jul 2008 09:44
Last Modified: 16 Mar 2024 08:30
DOI: 10.1186/bcr1388
Publisher's Statement : © 2006 Scutt et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/770