Breast cancer epidemiology and demographics
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1], Assistant Editor(s)-In-Chief: Jack Khouri
Overview
Epidemiological risk factors for a disease can provide important clues as to the etiology of a disease. The first work on breast cancer epidemiology was done by Janet Lane-Claypon, who published a comparative study in 1926 of 500 breast cancer cases and 500 control patients of the same background and lifestyle for the British Ministry of Health.[citation needed]
Today, breast cancer, like other forms of cancer, is considered to be the final outcome of multiple environmental and hereditary factors.
- Lesions to DNA such as genetic mutations. Exposure to estrogen has been experimentally linked to the mutations that cause breast cancer.[1] Beyond the contribution of estrogen, research has implicated viral oncogenesis and the contribution of ionizing radiation.
- Failure of immune surveillance, which usually removes malignancies at early phases of their natural history.
- Abnormal growth factor signaling in the interaction between stromal cells and epithelial cells, for example in the angiogenesis necessary to promote new blood vessel growth near new cancers.
- Inherited defects in DNA repair genes, such as BRCA1, BRCA2 and p53.
Although many epidemiological risk factors have been identified, the cause of any individual breast cancer is often unknowable. In other words, epidemiological research informs the patterns of breast cancer incidence across certain populations, but not in a given individual. Approximately 5% of new breast cancers are attributable to hereditary syndromes, while no etiology is known for the other 95% of cases.[2]
References
- ↑ Cavalieri E, Chakravarti D, Guttenplan J; et al. (2006). "Catechol estrogen quinones as initiators of breast and other human cancers: implications for biomarkers of susceptibility and cancer prevention". Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 1766 (1): 63–78. doi:10.1016/j.bbcan.2006.03.001. PMID 16675129.
- ↑ Madigan MP, Ziegler RG, Benichou J, Byrne C, Hoover RN (1995). "Proportion of breast cancer cases in the United States explained by well-established risk factors". J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 87 (22): 1681–5. PMID 7473816.
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- Gynecology
- Types of cancer
- Breast
- Hereditary cancers