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Hip BMD related to incident breast cancer risk

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The risk for breast cancer in postmenopausal women may be better quantified with the combined use of Gail score and bone mineral density.

Researchers from the University of Arizona College of Public Health and two other sites conducted a prospective study to determine whether BMD helps predict breast cancer in postmenopausal women.

Participants from the Women’s Health Initiative (n=9,941) were included in the study. The mean hip BMD score at baseline was 0.853 g/cm³ and median five-year Gail score was 1.42%. The researchers reported 327 incident breast cancer cases after an average follow-up of 8.43 years.

Osteoporosis was more common among women with a higher Gail score (P<.001), according to the study. Gail score was inversely related to hip BMD; however, the relationship was weaker after adjusting for age.

According to the researchers, hazard ratios for incident breast cancer for high Gail score and for each unit of increase in total hip BMD T-score were 1.35 and 1.25. They also reported a high increase in incident breast cancer in women with the highest BMD and Gail scores after restricting their analysis to women with both BMD and Gail scores above the median (P<.05).

Cancer. 2008;doi:10.1002/cncr.23674.