Collaborative effort of the US Military Cancer Institute, Department of Health Evaluation Sciences, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Department of Occupational and Preventive Medicine, Meharry Medical College
" Studies of the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and breast cancer in African American women have been few. We conducted a case-control study to examine whether BMI is associated with risk of breast cancer in this population."
LAY TERMINOLOGY: Is there a relationship between BMI and the occurrence of breast cancer in African American women? A case-control study involved two arms of the study: those who have the disease, and the normal control, or those who do not.
"Cases were 304 women diagnosed with breast cancer at the ages of 20 to 64 years. Controls were 305 women without a history of breast cancer. Telephone interviews were conducted to collect data on history of exposure to various factors at or before the date of diagnosis in cases or equivalent date in controls (reference date). Using logistic regression, we compared cases and controls in BMI at age 18, BMI at the reference date, and change in BMI between the two dates."
LAY TERMINOLOGY: 304 women with breast cancer and 305 women without breast were involved in the study. The women were contacted by phone. Information was taken about anything they may have been exposed to BEFORE they were diagnosed with cancer. This was compared to exposures for the women who did NOT have breast cancer. Taking the information and going backwards, they got to the point where they could compare all the women at age 18, and then again at the date of diagnosis and they figured out the change in BMI between age 18 and the date of diagnosis.
"Using BMI at reference date, we found an odds ratio (OR) of 1.75 (95% confidence interval [CI] , 1.02-3.02) and 2.32 (95% CI, 1.33-4.03) for women with BMI of 25 to 29.9 and 30 or higher, respectively, compared with women having BMI lower than 25. The corresponding OR estimates for BMI at age 18 were not significantly different from the unity. The average annual change in BMI between age 18 and date of diagnosis or reference date was associated with breast cancer risk, as shown that more BMI change tended to increase breast cancer risk compared with the baseline quartile of change. When data were analyzed by menopausal status, the association was found for both post-menopausal and pre-menopausal tumors for BMI at reference date but not for BMI at age 18. There was a higher risk for more annual BMI change compared with the baseline for both pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women."
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