Relevance of Established Risk Factors for Carcinoma Breast in Indian Women.

BACKGROUND

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women of India and across the globe. More than 2.1 million women were diagnosed to have breast cancer in 2018 worldwide. An incremental trend in incidence and mortality has been observed in South-Asian, low to middle income, developing countries. Age adjusted incidence in India is 25.8 per 100,000 women in India. The established risk factors for causation of carcinoma breast have been deduced primarily from Western studies and their applicability to Indian women remains varied. We wanted to evaluate the relevance of the established risk factors for carcinoma breast in patients presenting to our institute.

METHODS

This case-control study included 65 patients with histologically confirmed diagnosis of carcinoma breast in the test group and 65 healthy women in the control group. All enrolled women were made to fill a questionnaire to assess for presence or absence of established risk factors in them. Results were obtained by calculating percentage of women with these risk factors in both arms.

RESULTS

Among the established factors for carcinoma breast, 18.4% patients in the test group were obese compared to 12.3% women in the control group. This difference was found to be statistically significant with a p value of <0.02. However, there was no significant relevance between the two compared groups with respect to other risk factors studied.

CONCLUSIONS

While the established risk factors for carcinoma breast have been found to be relevant in multiple national and international studies, their applicability to specific populations such as those catered to by our institution varied. Out of all the established risk factors for carcinoma breast in the western population, the present study suggested significance only for obesity, with a BMI of ≥30 Kg/m²

KEY WORDS

Breast Cancer, Risk Factors, Relevance, Indian, Established