Maternal breast cancer risk after the death of a child

✍ Scribed by Mats Lambe; Ruha Cerrato; Johan Askling; Chung-cheng Hsieh

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 64 KB
• Volume: 110
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.20181

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The possible association between a severe traumatic life event (death of a child) and breast cancer risk was examined in a case‐control study nested within a nation‐wide cohort in Sweden. Our study population included 27,571 women with breast cancer and 141,798 control women born between 1925–1976. After adjustment for age, parity, age at first birth and education, the overall risk estimate for breast cancer among all women that had experienced the death of a child was 1.05 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.96–1.15). Among uniparous women the corresponding odds ratio (OR) was 1.27 (95% CI = 0.98–1.64). When stratifying for child's age at death a significant risk increase was detected among women that had lost their only child when the child was between 1–4 years of age (OR = 2.65; 95% CI = 1.06–6.60). These findings do not support an overall increase in breast cancer risk after the death of a child, a severe traumatic life event. Based on a small number of subjects, our finding of an increased risk in a subgroup of uniparous women losing their only child could be due to chance. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.