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Reproductive factors and risk of contralateral breast cancer by BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status: results from the WECARE study

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Abstract

Objective

Reproductive factors, such as early age at menarche, late age at menopause, and nulliparity are known risk factors for breast cancer. Previously, we reported these factors to be associated with risk of developing contralateral breast cancer (CBC). In this study, we evaluated the association between these factors and CBC risk among BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) mutation carriers and non-carriers.

Methods

The WECARE Study is a population-based multi-center case–control study of 705 women with CBC (cases) and 1,397 women with unilateral breast cancer (controls). All participants were screened for BRCA1/2 mutations and 181 carriers were identified. Conditional logistic regression models were used to evaluate associations between reproductive factors and CBC for mutation carriers and non-carriers.

Results

None of the associations between reproductive factors and CBC risk differed between mutation carriers and non-carriers. The increase in risk with younger age at menarche and decrease in risk in women with more than two full-term pregnancies seen in non-carriers were not significantly different in carriers (adjusted RRs = 1.31, 95% CI 0.65–2.65 and 0.53, 95% CI 0.19–1.51, respectively). No significant associations between the other reproductive factors and CBC risk were observed in mutation carriers or non-carriers.

Conclusion

For two reproductive factors previously shown to be associated with CBC risk, we observed similar associations for BRCA1/2 carriers. This suggests that reproductive variables that affect CBC risk may have similar effects in mutation carriers and non-carriers.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Cancer Institute (NCI) R01CA097397 and NCI U01CA083178. JNP was supported by NCI T32 CA009142.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

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

    Jenny N. Poynter, Bryan Langholz, Shanyan Xue, Anh T. Diep & Robert W. Haile

  2. Division of Pediatric Epidemiology and Clinical Research, University of Minnesota, 420 Delaware St SE, Moos 1-117, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Jenny N. Poynter

  3. Department of Epidemiology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Joan Largent

  4. Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Lene Mellemkjær

  5. Division of Cancer Etiology, Department of Population Sciences, City of Hope National Medical Center/Beckman Research Institute, Duarte, CA, USA

    Leslie Bernstein

  6. Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    Kathleen E. Malone

  7. Department of Epidemiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

    Charles F. Lynch

  8. Department of Oncology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Åke Borg & Therese Törngren

  9. Center for Public Health Genomics and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Patrick Concannon & Sharon N. Teraoka

  10. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA

    Colin B. Begg, Marinela Capanu & Jonine L. Bernstein

Authors
  1. Jenny N. Poynter
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  2. Bryan Langholz
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  3. Joan Largent
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  4. Lene Mellemkjær
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  5. Leslie Bernstein
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  6. Kathleen E. Malone
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  8. Åke Borg
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  9. Patrick Concannon
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Consortia

The WECARE Study Collaborative Group

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jenny N. Poynter.

Additional information

The members of WECARE Study Collaborative Group are given in “Appendix”.

Appendix

Appendix

WECARE Study Collaborative Group

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY): Jonine L. Bernstein Ph.D. (WECARE Study P.I.), Colin B. Begg. Ph.D., Marinela Capanu Ph.D, Tracy M. Layne M.P.H., Anne S. Reiner M.P.H., Xiaolin Liang M.D.

City of Hope (Duarte, CA) (Los Angeles CA): Leslie Bernstein Ph.D., Laura Donnelly-Allen (some work performed at University of Southern California)

Danish Cancer Society (Copenhagen, Denmark): Jørgen H. Olsen, M.D., D.M.Sc., Michael Andersson M.D., D.M.Sc.; Lisbeth Bertelsen M.D.Ph.D., Per Guldberg Ph.D., Lene Mellemkjær Ph.D

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Seattle, WA): Kathleen E. Malone Ph.D., Noemi Epstein

International Epidemiology Institute (Rockville, MD) and Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN): John D. Boice Jr. Sc.D.

Lund University (Lund, Sweden): Åke Borg Ph.D., Therese Törngren M.Sc, Lina Tellhed B.Sc.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine (New York, NY): Barry S. Rosenstein Ph.D., David P. Atencio Ph.D.

National Cancer Institute (Bethesda, MD): Daniela Seminara Ph.D., M.P.H

New York University (New York, NY): Roy E. Shore Ph.D., Dr.PH.

Norwegian Radium Hospital (Oslo, Norway): Anne-Lise Børresen-Dale Ph.D., Laila Jansen

University of California at Irvine (Irvine, CA): Hoda Anton-Culver Ph.D., Joan Largent Ph.D. M.P.H. (Co-Investigator)

University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA): Charles F. Lynch M.D., Ph.D., Jeanne DeWall M.A.

University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA): Robert W. Haile Dr. P.H., Bryan M. Langholz Ph.D. (Co-Investigator), Duncan C. Thomas Ph.D. (Co-Investigator), Anh T. Diep (Co-Investigator), Shanyan Xue M.D., Nianmin Zhou, M.D, Evgenia Ter-Karapetova

University of Southern Maine (Portland, ME):W. Douglas Thompson Ph.D.

University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX): Marilyn Stovall Ph.D., Susan Smith M.P.H.

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA) (Some work performed at Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle, WA): Patrick Concannon, Ph.D., Sharon Teraoka, Ph.D., Eric R. Olson, Ph.D., Nirasha Ramchurren, Ph.D.

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Poynter, J.N., Langholz, B., Largent, J. et al. Reproductive factors and risk of contralateral breast cancer by BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status: results from the WECARE study. Cancer Causes Control 21, 839–846 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-010-9510-0

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