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Breast cancer risk and night shift work in a case–control study in a Spanish population

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Abstract

Epidemiologic and animal data indicate that night shift work might increase the risk for breast cancer. We evaluated the association of night work with different clinical types of breast cancer in a population based case–control study (MCC-Spain study) taking into account chronotype, an individual characteristic that may relate to night shift work adaptation. Lifetime occupational history was assessed by face-to-face interviews and shift work information was available for 1708 breast cancer cases and 1778 population controls from 10 Spanish regions, enrolled from 2008 to 2013. We evaluated three shift work domains, including shift work type (permanent vs rotating), lifetime cumulative duration and frequency. We estimated odds ratios (OR) for night work compared to day work using unconditional logistic regression models adjusting for confounders. Having ever worked permanent or rotating night shift was associated with an increased risk for breast cancer compared to day workers [odds ratio (OR) 1.18; 95 % CI 0.97, 1.43]. Chronotype was differentially associated with breast cancer depending on the duration of night shift work. Risk was higher in women with invasive tumors (OR 1.23; 95 % CI 1.00, 1.51) and for estrogen and progestagen positive tumors among premenopausal women (OR 1.44; 95 % CI 1.05, 1.99). Having ever performed night shift was associated with a small increased risk for breast cancer and especially in subgroups of women with particular hormone related characteristics.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the participants in the study, the data manager and all the interviewers and technicians involved in the data collection. We would also like to thank Juan Alguacil, Miguel Santibañez, Victor Moreno and Laura Costas for their valuable comments in the text.

Funding

The study was funded by the “Accion Transversal del Cancer”, approved on the Spanish Ministry Council on the 11th October 2007, by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III-FEDER (PI08/1770, PI08/0533, PI08/1359, PI09/00773-Cantabria, PI09/01286-León, PI09/01903-Valencia, PI09/02078-Huelva, PI09/01662-Granada, PI11/01403, PI11/01889-FEDER, PI11/00226, PI11/01810, PI11/02213, PI12/00488, PI12/00265, PI12/01270, PI12/00715, PI12/00150), by the Fundación Marqués de Valdecilla (API 10/09), by the ICGC International Cancer Genome Consortium CLL (The ICGC CLL-Genome Project is funded by Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) through the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and Red Temática de Investigación del Cáncer (RTICC) del ISCIII (RD12/0036/0036)), by the Junta de Castilla y León (LE22A10-2), by the Consejería de Salud of the Junta de Andalucía (2009-S0143), by the Conselleria de Sanitat of the Generalitat Valenciana (AP_061/10), by the Recercaixa (2010ACUP 00310), by the European Commission Grants FOOD-CT-2006-036224-HIWATE, by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) Scientific Foundation, by the Catalan Government DURSI Grant 2009SGR1489, and by a predoctoral Grant PFIS (FI09/00385).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Doctor Aiguader, 88, 08003, Barcelona, Spain

    Kyriaki Papantoniou, Gemma Castaño-Vinyals, Ana Espinosa & Manolis Kogevinas

  2. IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute), Barcelona, Spain

    Kyriaki Papantoniou, Gemma Castaño-Vinyals, Ana Espinosa & Manolis Kogevinas

  3. Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain

    Kyriaki Papantoniou, Gemma Castaño-Vinyals, Ana Espinosa & Manolis Kogevinas

  4. Environmental and Cancer Epidemiology Area, National Center of Epidemiology, Carlos III Health Institute, Madrid, Spain

    Nuria Aragonés, Beatriz Pérez-Gómez & Marina Pollan

  5. Cancer Epidemiology Research Group, Oncology and Hematology Area, IIS Puerta de Hierro, Madrid, Spain

    Nuria Aragonés, Beatriz Pérez-Gómez & Marina Pollan

  6. Instituto de Salud Publica de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

    Eva Ardanaz

  7. Public Health Division of Gipuzkoa-BIODONOSTIA, Basque Regional Health Department, San Sebastian, Spain

    Jone Miren Altzibar

  8. Universidad de León, León, Spain

    Vicente Martin Sanchez

  9. University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain

    Inés Gómez-Acebo & Javier Llorca

  10. IDIVAL, Santander, Spain

    Inés Gómez-Acebo & Javier Llorca

  11. Centro de Investigación en Salud y Medio Ambiente (CYSMA), Universidad de Huelva, Huelva, Spain

    David Muñoz

  12. IUOPA, Universidad de Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

    Adonina Tardón

  13. Fundación para el Fomento de la Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica de la Comunidad Valenciana (FISABIO), Valencia, Spain

    Rosana Peiró

  14. Epidemiology Unit and Girona Cancer Registry (Oncology Coordination Plan), Department of Health, Autonomous Government of Catalonia, Catalan Institute of Oncology, Girona Biomedical Research Institute, Girona, Spain

    Rafael Marcos-Gragera

  15. CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain

    Kyriaki Papantoniou, Gemma Castaño-Vinyals, Ana Espinosa, Nuria Aragonés, Beatriz Pérez-Gómez, Eva Ardanaz, Jone Miren Altzibar, Vicente Martin Sanchez, Inés Gómez-Acebo, Javier Llorca, David Muñoz, Adonina Tardón, Rosana Peiró, Marina Pollan & Manolis Kogevinas

  16. National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece

    Manolis Kogevinas

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  1. Kyriaki Papantoniou
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  2. Gemma Castaño-Vinyals
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  10. Javier Llorca
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  11. David Muñoz
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  15. Marina Pollan
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  16. Manolis Kogevinas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manolis Kogevinas.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Papantoniou, K., Castaño-Vinyals, G., Espinosa, A. et al. Breast cancer risk and night shift work in a case–control study in a Spanish population. Eur J Epidemiol 31, 867–878 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-015-0073-y

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