Intrauterine environment, mammary gland mass and breast cancer risk.

Dimitrios Trichopoulos

doi:10.1186/bcr555

Abstract

Two intimately linked hypotheses on breast cancer etiology are described. The main postulate of the first hypothesis is that higher levels of pregnancy estrogens and other hormones favor the generation of a higher number of susceptible stem cells with compromised genomic stability. The second hypothesis postulates that the mammary gland mass, as a correlate of the number of cells susceptible to transformation, is an important determinant of breast cancer risk. A simple integrated etiological model for breast cancer is presented and it is indicated that the model accommodates most epidemiological aspects of breast cancer occurrence and natural history.

Highlights

In the early 1990s, I contributed to the development of breast cancer risk depends on the transition rates of two intimately linked hypotheses concerning breast normal susceptible cells to intermediate cells and to cancer etiology in humans
Several authors in the late 1980s intrauterine environment may affect breast cancer risk in suggested that energy intake during early life may affect the offspring in ways over and beyond those attributed to the number of mammary cells, mammary gland mass and, major breast cancer genes [1]
The argument was made that the number of mammary gland cells, of those among them that are sus- Intrauterine environment and breast cancer ceptible to transformation, is an important determinant of risk breast cancer risk [2]

Summary

Introduction

In the early 1990s, I contributed to the development of breast cancer risk depends on the transition rates of two intimately linked hypotheses concerning breast normal susceptible cells to intermediate cells and to cancer etiology in humans. Mammographic density is a This composite, yet simple, model accommodates most, powerful predictor of breast cancer risk and this density is if not all, epidemiological aspects of breast cancer strongly associated with mammary gland mass, occurrence and natural history These include the the stromal component is likely to play an important secular increase of breast cancer incidence during the role [16,17,18,19]. Small-breasted women who were motivated early part of last century, the higher risk for this disease to have augmentation mammoplasty, and whose mammary among higher socioeconomic class women in most gland mass had to be small, were found to have reduced countries of the world, as well as the gradual increase of breast cancer risk [20,21], no reduction was breast cancer incidence among Asian migrants to evident in a small cohort study that included eight breast Western countries All these patterns reflect concomicancer cases [22].

Loeb LA

14. Schernhammer ES