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Reproductive factors, exogenous female hormone use and breast cancer risk in Japanese: the Miyagi Cohort Study

Cancer Causes & Control volume 21, pages 135–145 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

The incidence of breast cancer among Japanese women is substantially increasing. This population-based prospective cohort study in Japan evaluated the associations of reproductive factors and exogenous female hormone use with breast cancer risk, both overall and separately among premenopausal and postmenopausal women. A total of 24,064 women aged 40–64 were followed from 1990 to 2003. During 309,424 person-years of follow-up, 285 breast cancer cases were documented. In overall evaluation, nulliparity was significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. There was a significant decrease in risk with increasing parity number among parous women (trend P = 0.008). No association was observed between age at menarche or age at first birth and breast cancer risk. Neither oral contraceptive (OC) use nor the use of exogenous female hormones other than OC was associated with breast cancer risk. The evaluation according to menopausal status revealed that nulliparity and parity number were significantly related to breast cancer risk only among postmenopausal women. Later age at natural menopause was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among postmenopausal women (trend P = 0.02). Our findings suggest that parity number and age at menopause have great effects on breast cancer risk among Japanese women.

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Abbreviations

OC:

Oral contraceptive

HRT:

Hormone replacement therapy

HR:

Hazard ratio

CI:

Confidence interval

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan (grant number: H20-Kiban C-20590630) and in part by the 3rd Term Comprehensive Control Research for Cancer (grant number: H18-Senryaku-001) from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. None of the authors declare any personal or financial conflict of interest.

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Affiliations

  1. Division of Surgical Oncology, Graduate School of Medicine, Tohoku University, 1-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8574, Japan

    Masaaki Kawai, Takanori Ishida & Noriaki Ohuchi

  2. Division of Community Health, Tohoku University School of Health Sciences, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8575, Japan

    Yuko Minami

  3. Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8575, Japan

    Shinichi Kuriyama, Masako Kakizaki & Ichiro Tsuji

  4. Division of Surgery, Miyagi Cancer Center, 47-1, Nodayama, Medeshima-Shiode, Natori, Miyagi, 981-1293, Japan

    Yoichiro Kakugawa

  5. Division of Epidemiology, Miyagi Cancer Center Research Institute, 47-1, Nodayama, Medeshima-Shiode, Natori, Miyagi, 981-1293, Japan

    Yoshikazu Nishino

  6. Department of Public Health, Yamagata University School of Medicine, 2-2-2, Iida-nishi, Yamagata, 990-9585, Japan

    Akira Fukao

Authors
  1. Masaaki Kawai
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  2. Yuko Minami
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  3. Shinichi Kuriyama
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  4. Masako Kakizaki
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  5. Yoichiro Kakugawa
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  6. Yoshikazu Nishino
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  7. Takanori Ishida
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  8. Akira Fukao
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  9. Ichiro Tsuji
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  10. Noriaki Ohuchi
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Correspondence to Yuko Minami.

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Kawai, M., Minami, Y., Kuriyama, S. et al. Reproductive factors, exogenous female hormone use and breast cancer risk in Japanese: the Miyagi Cohort Study. Cancer Causes Control 21, 135–145 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-009-9443-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-009-9443-7

Keywords

  • Breast Cancer
  • Cohort studies
  • Menopause
  • Oral contraceptives
  • Reproductive factors