Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Benign breast disease and risk of thyroid cancer

  • Original paper
  • Published:
Cancer Causes & Control Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

It has been suggested that breast and thyroid diseases may be linked. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between benign breast disease and subsequent risk of thyroid cancer.

Methods

Postmenopausal women (n = 133,875) aged 50–79 years were followed up for a mean of 14 years. Benign breast disease was defined by history of biopsy. Incident thyroid cancer cases were confirmed by medical record review. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard modeling was used to estimate hazard ratios.

Results

There were 370 incident thyroid cancer cases during the follow-up period. Compared to women without BBD, women with BBD had a significant increased risk of thyroid cancer after adjusting for potential confounders (HR 1.38 95% CI 1.10–1.73), especially for women with more than two biopsies (HR 1.59 95% CI 1.10–2.26). There were no significant differences in thyroid tumor size, stage or histologic types between women with and without BBD.

Conclusion

Our large prospective study observed that postmenopausal women with BBD had an increased risk for thyroid cancer compared with women without BBD. A more detailed investigation of thyroid cancer risk according to different subtypes of benign breast disease is needed to better understand the association observed between thyroid and benign breast diseases.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Vigneri R, Malandrino P, Vigneri P (2015) The changing epidemiology of thyroid cancer: why is incidence increasing? Curr Opin Oncol 27:1–7

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Nagataki S, Nystrom E (2002) Epidemiology and primary prevention of thyroid cancer. Thyroid 12:889–896

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Schonfeld SJ, Ron E, Kitahara CM et al (2011) Hormonal and reproductive factors and risk of postmenopausal thyroid cancer in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Cancer Epidemiol 35:e85–e90

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Kabat GC, Kim MY, Wactawski-Wende J, Lane D, Wassertheil-Smoller S, Rohan TE (2012) Menstrual and reproductive factors, exogenous hormone use, and risk of thyroid carcinoma in postmenopausal women. Cancer Cause Control 23:2031–2040

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Science JMECfCDaC (2016) Core-needle biopsy for breast abnormalities*. Rockville The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK368367/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK368367.pdf)

  6. Goehring C, Morabia A (1997) Epidemiology of benign breast disease, with special attention to histologic types. Epidemiol Rev 19:310–327

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Dyrstad SW, Yan Y, Fowler AM, Colditz GA (2015) Breast cancer risk associated with benign breast disease: systematic review and meta-analysis. Breast Cancer Res Treat 149:569–575

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Hartmann LC, Sellers TA, Frost MH et al (2005) Benign breast disease and the risk of breast cancer. N Engl J Med 353:229–237

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Meinhold CL, Ron E, Schonfeld SJ et al (2010) Nonradiation risk factors for thyroid cancer in the US Radiologic Technologists Study. Am J Epidemiol 171:242–252

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Ron E, Kleinerman RA, Boice JD Jr, LiVolsi VA, Flannery JT, Fraumeni JF Jr (1987) A population-based case-control study of thyroid cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 79:1–12

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Braganza MZ, de Gonzalez AB, Schonfeld SJ, Wentzensen N, Brenner AV, Kitahara CM (2014) Benign breast and gynecologic conditions, reproductive and hormonal factors, and risk of thyroid cancer. Cancer Prev Res (Phila) 7:418–425

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kuo JH, Chabot JA, Lee JA (2016) Breast cancer in thyroid cancer survivors: an analysis of the Surveillance, epidemiology, and end results-9 database. Surgery 159:23–29

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Design of the Women's Health Initiative clinical trial and observational study (1998) The Women's Health Initiative Study Group. Control Clin Trials 19:61–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Hays J, Hunt JR, Hubbell FA, Anderson GL, Limacher M, Allen C, Rossouw JE (2003) The Women’s Health Initiative recruitment methods and results. Ann Epidemiol 13(9 Suppl):S18–S77

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Bondy ML, Newman LA (2006) Assessing breast cancer risk: evolution of the Gail model. J Natl Cancer Inst 98:1172–1173

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Yuan MK, Chang SC, Hsu LC, Pan PJ, Huang CC, Leu HB (2014) Mammography and the risk of thyroid and hematological cancers: a nationwide population-based study. Breast J 20:496–501

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Zhang Y, Chen Y, Huang H et al (2015) Diagnostic radiography exposure increases the risk for thyroid microcarcinoma: a population-based case–control study. Eur J Cancer Prev 24:439–446

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Sechopoulos I, Hendrick RE (2012) Mammography and the risk of thyroid cancer. AJR Am J Roentgenol 198:705–707

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Ronckers CM, McCarron P, Ron E (2005) Thyroid cancer and multiple primary tumors in the SEER cancer registries. Int J Cancer 117:281–288

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Mester J, Eng C (2015) Cowden syndrome: recognizing and managing a not-so-rare hereditary cancer syndrome. J Surg Oncol 111:125–130

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Eng C (2000) Editorial: familial papillary thyroid cancer—Many syndromes, too many genes? J Clin Endocr Metab 85:1755–1757

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Franceschi S, Preston-Martin S, Dal Maso L et al (1999) A pooled analysis of case–control studies of thyroid cancer. IV. Benign thyroid diseases. Cancer Causes Control 10:583–595

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Giustarini E, Pinchera A, Fierabracci P et al (2006) Thyroid autoimmunity in patients with malignant and benign breast diseases before surgery. Eur J Endocrinol 154:645–649

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Adamopoulos DA, Vassilaros S, Kapolla N, Papadiamantis J, Georgiakodis F, Michalakis A (1986) Thyroid disease in patients with benign and malignant mastopathy. Cancer 57:125–128

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Bhargav PR, Mishra A, Agarwal G, Agarwal A, Verma AK, Mishra SK (2009) Prevalence of hypothyroidism in benign breast disorders and effect of thyroxine replacement on the clinical outcome. World J Surg 33:2087–2093

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The WHI program is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through contracts HHSN268201600018C, HHSN268201600001C, HHSN268201600002C, HHSN268201600003C, and HHSN268201600004C.” A short list of WHI investigators is in an appendix.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health-Bloomington, Indiana University, 1025 E. 7th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Juhua Luo

  2. Department of Applied Health Science, School of Public Health, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Michael Hendryx

  3. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Rami Nassir

  4. Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Ting-Yuan David Cheng

  5. Department of Family, Population & Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Dorothy Lane

  6. HealthPartners Institute, Mailstop 21111R, Box 1524, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Karen L. Margolis

Authors
  1. Juhua Luo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael Hendryx
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rami Nassir
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ting-Yuan David Cheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Dorothy Lane
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Karen L. Margolis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Juhua Luo.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest.

Appendix: Short list of WHI investigators

Appendix: Short list of WHI investigators

Program Office: (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland) Jacques Rossouw, Shari Ludlam, Joan McGowan, Leslie Ford, and Nancy Geller.

Clinical Coordinating Center: Clinical Coordinating Center: (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA) Garnet Anderson, Ross Prentice, Andrea LaCroix, and Charles Kooperberg.

Investigators and Academic Centers:(Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA) JoAnn E. Manson; (MedStar Health Research Institute/Howard University, Washington, DC) Barbara V. Howard; (Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford, CA) Marcia L. Stefanick; (The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH) Rebecca Jackson; (University of Arizona, Tucson/Phoenix, AZ) Cynthia A. Thomson; (University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY) Jean Wactawski-Wende; (University of Florida, Gainesville/Jacksonville, FL) Marian Limacher; (University of Iowa, Iowa City/Davenport, IA) Jennifer Robinson; (University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA) Lewis Kuller; (Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC) Sally Shumaker; (University of Nevada, Reno, NV) Robert Brunner; (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN) Karen L. Margolis.

Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study: (Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC) Mark Espeland.

For a list of all the investigators who have contributed to WHI science, please visit: haps://www. whi. org/researchers/Documents %20%20Write %20a %2OP aper/WHI %20Investigator  %20Long %20List.pdf.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Luo, J., Hendryx, M., Nassir, R. et al. Benign breast disease and risk of thyroid cancer. Cancer Causes Control 28, 913–920 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-017-0918-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-017-0918-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation