Giving Birth Linked To Cancer In Blacks

 PHILADELPHIA — Black women are at higher risk for hormone receptor-negative breast cancer, one of the most difficult subtypes to treat, but this risk could be ameliorated somewhat by breast-feeding their children.

“African-American women are more likely to have had a greater number of full-term births and less likely to have breast-fed their babies,” said Julie Palmer, Sc.D., professor of epidemiology at the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University. “This study shows a clear link between that and hormone receptor-negative breast cancer.”

Palmer based her report, published in a recent issue ofCancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, on the Black Women’s Health Study, which has followed 59,000 black women since 1995.

Between 1995 and 2009, researchers recorded 457 cases of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and 318 cases of hormone receptor-negative breast cancer among study participants.

For women who had two or more children, there was a 50 percent increased risk of hormone receptor-negative breast cancer. However, among women who breast-fed, there was no longer a significant increased risk.

For estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, a higher birth rate was associated with a decreased risk and breast-feeding had no effect.

“The adverse effect of high childbirth without subsequent breast-feeding seems to be confined to the hormone receptor-negative breast cancer, which carries a higher mortality rate and is more common in African-Americans,” said Palmer.