Abstract
Purpose
To examine the association between benign breast disease (BBD) and breast cancer (BC) in a heterogeneous population of African women.
Methods
BC cases and controls were enrolled in three sub-Saharan African countries, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Uganda, between 1998 and 2018. Multivariable logistic regression was used to test the association between BBD and BC. Risk factors dually associated with BBD and BC were selected. Using a parametric mediation analysis model, we assessed if selected BC risk factors were mediated by BBD.
Results
Of 6,274 participants, 55.6% (3,478) were breast cancer cases. 360 (5.7%) self-reported BBD. Fibroadenoma (46.8%) was the most commonly reported BBD. Women with a self-reported history of BBD had greater odds of developing BC than those without (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.47, 95% CI 1.13–1.91). Biopsy-confirmed BBD was associated with BC (aOR 2.25, 95% CI 1.26–4.02). BBD did not significantly mediate the effects of any of the selected BC risk factors.
Conclusions
In this study, BBD was associated with BC and did not significantly mediate the effects of selected BC risk factors.
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Data availability
The datasets analyzed during this study are not publicly available due to concerns about patient privacy, in particular, the breast cancer cases recruited from the four hospitals involved in the study.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the study participants enrolled in the African Breast Cancer Study and thank our staff for their assistance and support throughout the research project. This manuscript is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Stella O. Odedina (nee Akinleye). This study was supported by the National Institute of Health (R01CA089085, U01CA161032, R01CA228198, R01MD013452) and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (TREND21675016, Komen Scholar).
Funding
This work was supported by the National Institute of Health (R01CA089085, U01CA161032, R01CA228198, R01MD013452) and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (TREND21675016, Komen Scholar).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design, data acquisition, and data analysis/interpretation. The first draft of the manuscript was written by OJO and all authors contributed to manuscript revision for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Olufunmilayo I. Olopade is a co-founder of CancerIQ, sits on the advisory boards of 54gene and Tempus, and has received research funding from Ayala Pharmaceuticals, Cepheid, Color Genomics, Novartis, and Roche/Genentech. All other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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Omoleye, O.J., Freeman, J.Q., Oluwasanu, M. et al. Benign breast disease and breast cancer risk in African women: a case–control study. Cancer Causes Control 35, 787–798 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01837-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01837-1