Smoking and risk of breast cancer in the Generations Study cohort.
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Date
2017-11-22Author
Jones, ME
Schoemaker, MJ
Wright, LB
Ashworth, A
Swerdlow, AJ
Type
Journal Article
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
BACKGROUND: Plausible biological reasons exist regarding why smoking could affect breast cancer risk, but epidemiological evidence is inconsistent. METHODS: We used serial questionnaire information from the Generations Study cohort (United Kingdom) to estimate HRs for breast cancer in relation to smoking adjusted for potentially confounding factors, including alcohol intake. RESULTS: Among 102,927 women recruited 2003-2013, with an average of 7.7 years of follow-up, 1815 developed invasive breast cancer. The HR (reference group was never smokers) was 1.14 (95% CI 1.03-1.25; P = 0.010) for ever smokers, 1.24 (95% CI 1.08-1.43; P = 0.002) for starting smoking at ages < 17 years, and 1.23 (1.07-1.41; P = 0.004) for starting smoking 1-4 years after menarche. Breast cancer risk was not statistically associated with interval from initiation of smoking to first birth (P-trend = 0.97). Women with a family history of breast cancer (ever smoker vs never smoker HR 1.35; 95% CI 1.12-1.62; P = 0.002) had a significantly larger HR in relation to ever smokers (P for interaction = 0.039) than women without (ever smoker vs never smoker HR 1.07; 95% CI 0.96-1.20; P = 0.22). The interaction was prominent for age at starting smoking (P = 0.003) and starting smoking relative to age at menarche (P = 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Smoking was associated with a modest but significantly increased risk of breast cancer, particularly among women who started smoking at adolescent or peri-menarcheal ages. The relative risk of breast cancer associated with smoking was greater for women with a family history of the disease.
Collections
Subject
Humans
Breast Neoplasms
Population Surveillance
Risk Assessment
Risk Factors
Cohort Studies
Smoking
History, 21st Century
Adult
Middle Aged
Female
Surveys and Questionnaires
Biomarkers, Tumor
United Kingdom
Research team
Aetiological Epidemiology
Language
eng
Date accepted
2017-10-11
License start date
2017-11-22
Citation
Breast cancer research : BCR, 2017, 19 (1), pp. 118 - ?
Publisher
BMC