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Birth weight and other prenatal factors and risk of breast cancer in Asian-Americans

  • Epidemiology
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Abstract

Little is known about the role of birth weight and other prenatal factors in the etiology of breast cancer in Asian-Americans. We investigated the relation between birth weight and other prenatal factors and breast cancer risk in a population-based case–control study in Los Angeles County that included 2,259 Asian-American women with incident, histologically confirmed breast cancer and 2,019 control women, who were frequency matched to cases on age, Asian ethnicity, and neighborhood of residence. Breast cancer risk nearly doubled (odds ratio (OR) = 1.97, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.15–3.39) among those with high (≥4000 g) birth weight compared to those with low (<2500 g) birth weight after adjusting for age at menarche, parity, adult body mass index, and other covariates. Risk increased 8% per 500 g increase in birth weight (P trend = 0.10). We observed a significant relationship between birth weight and age at menarche in both cases and controls. Mean birth weight was higher (2948 g) for control women who had early menarche (age ≤ 11 years) compared to those who had menarche late (age ≥ 15 years) (2807 g) (P trend = 0.016); results were similar among case patients (P trend = 0.020). Older maternal age was also a risk factor; risk increased by 6% (95% CI = 1.01–1.12) per 5 years increase in maternal age with adjustment for parity and other risk factors. Our results support the hypothesis that high birth weight and older maternal age at pregnancy may have contributed to the rising breast cancer incidence in Asian-Americans.

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Acknowledgment

We are grateful to all the study participants for their contributions and support. We thank the entire data collection team, especially Annie Fung and June Yashiki. This study was supported by grants (1RB-0287, 3PB-0102, and 5PB-0018, 10PB-0098) from the California Breast Cancer Research Program. Incident breast cancer cases for this study were collected by the USC Cancer Surveillance Program (CSP), which is supported under subcontract by the California Department of Health. The CSP is also part of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, under contract number N01CN25403.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Anna H. Wu, Roberta McKean-Cowdin & Chiu-Chen Tseng

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  1. Anna H. Wu
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  2. Roberta McKean-Cowdin
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  3. Chiu-Chen Tseng
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Correspondence to Anna H. Wu.

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Wu, A.H., McKean-Cowdin, R. & Tseng, CC. Birth weight and other prenatal factors and risk of breast cancer in Asian-Americans. Breast Cancer Res Treat 130, 917–925 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-011-1640-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-011-1640-x

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