Relationship of serum estrogens and estrogen metabolites to postmenopausal breast cancer risk: a nested case-control study.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Elevated levels of circulating estrogens are linked to breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women but little is known about the importance of estrogen metabolism. A recently developed liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry-based method (LC-MS/MS) measuring a panel of 15 estrogen metabolites (EM) has been evaluated in one study, linking high levels of 2-pathway metabolites relative to the parent estrogens to reduced breast cancer risk. We analyzed this panel of EM in a nested case-control study of postmenopausal breast cancer.

Methods

Between 1977 and 1987, 6,915 women provided blood samples to the Columbia Missouri Serum Bank and were followed for incident breast cancer through December 2002. We studied 215 postmenopausal breast cancer cases and 215 m

SUBMITTER: Falk RT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4053199 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature