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Kongress Medizin und Gesellschaft 2007

17. bis 21.09.2007, Augsburg

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The association of menopausal hormone therapy with risk of different histological subtypes of breast cancer in postmeno-pausal women

Meeting Abstract

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  • Dieter Flesch-Janys - Department of Medical Biometrics and Epidemiology, University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
  • Tracy Slanger - Division of Cancer Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg
  • Elke Mutschelknauss - Department of Medical Biometrics and Epidemiology, University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
  • Silke Kropp - Division of Cancer Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg
  • Nadia Obi - Department of Medical Biometrics and Epidemiology, University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
  • Jürgen Berger - Department of Medical Biometrics and Epidemiology, University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
  • Wilhelm Braendle - Center of Gynaecology, Obstetrics and Paediatrics University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
  • Jenny Chang-Claude - Division of Cancer Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg

Kongress Medizin und Gesellschaft 2007. Augsburg, 17.-21.09.2007. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2007. Doc07gmds091

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/gmds2007/07gmds091.shtml

Published: September 6, 2007

© 2007 Flesch-Janys et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Objectives: To determine the risk of breast cancer by histological subtypes associated with the use of different formulations of menopausal hormone therapy in postmenopausal women in a population of high prevalence and long duration of use.

Methods: The MARIE- study (Mammary Carcinoma Risk Evaluation) is a population based, two centre case-control study in the Hamburg and Rhine-Neckar-Region in Germany. The study included n=3464 postmenopausal invasive and in situ breast cancer cases aged 50-74 years at diagnosis and n=6657 controls, frequency matched (1:2) by year of birth. Data on menopausal hormone therapy (HT) use and various breast cancer risk factors were ascertained by in-person interviews. Polytomous logistic regression was used to estimate ORs and 95%-confidence intervals, adjusted for several potential confounders.

Results: Compared to never users, the odds ratios for ever HT use varied significantly accord-ing to histological type overall, for users of estrogen-only therapy, and for users of estrogen-progestagen therapy. The highest estimates were observed for current users for invasive lobu-lar (OR 2.98; 2.38-3.73) and tubular cancer (OR 3.74; 2.07-6.75), and lower for invasive duc-tal cancers (OR 1.40; 1.23-1.59). Ever use of estrogen-only therapy was not associated with an increased risk in invasive ductal cancer, but significantly elevated for lobular (OR 2.14) and tubular cancer (OR 2.66), and in situ carcinomas (OR 1.65). In contrast, ever use of es-trogen-progestagen therapy increased the risk of ductal tumours as well (OR 1.31) but was substantially higher for lobular (OR 2.51) and tubular (OR 3.64) cancer. In general, risks in-creased by duration of use and declined rapidly after cessation.

Conclusions: Menopause related hormone therapy was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, most pronounced for lobular and tubular types. In general, risk was highest for current users and decreased with time after cessation.