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European
ancestry increases Breast Cancer Risk among
Latinas
Newswise — Latina women have a lower risk of
breast cancer than European or
African-American women generally but those
with higher European ancestry could be at
increased risk, according to data published
in the December 1 issue of Cancer Research,
a journal of the American Association for
Cancer Research.
“We need to study the possible factors that
are placing Latina women of high European
ancestry at greater risk,” said Laura
Fejerman, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research
fellow at the University of California San
Francisco.
“The increased risk could be due to
environmental factors, genetic factors or
the interplay of the two.”
Latinas are what geneticists refer to as an
“admixed” population with most of their
genetic ancestry from European or indigenous
Americans.
Fejerman said the term “indigenous
Americans” usually refers to the groups that
lived on the American continent prior to the
arrival of the European colonizers.
For the current study, Fejerman and
colleagues identified the genetic ancestry
of 440 Latina women with breast cancer and
597 Latina women who did not have breast
cancer.
For every 25 percent increase in European
ancestry there is a 79 percent increase in
the risk of breast cancer.
If a woman had an estimated European
ancestry of 25 percent she would be 79
percent more likely to have breast cancer
than a woman of full indigenous American
ancestry.
After accounting for known risk factors like
number of full-term pregnancies or months of
breastfeeding, the breast cancer risk for
every 25 percent increase in European
ancestry decreased to 39 percent, but it
remained statistically significant.
Fejerman said that the overall risk of
Latinas in the US is less than in European
Americans but higher than indigenous
Americans.
She said further research would need to be
conducted to determine if these differences
are due to the presence of non-genetic risk
factors that have not yet been described and
that vary with ancestry, to the effect of
genetic variants that either are protective
or increase risk, or the result of the
interaction between genes and non-genetic
factors.
The mission of the American Association for
Cancer Research is to prevent and cure
cancer. Founded in 1907, AACR is the world’s
oldest and largest professional organization
dedicated to advancing cancer research.
The membership includes more than 28,000
basic, translational and clinical
researchers; health care professionals; and
cancer survivors and advocates in the United
States and 80 other countries.
The AACR marshals the full spectrum of
expertise from the cancer community to
accelerate progress in the prevention,
diagnosis and treatment of cancer through
high-quality scientific and educational
programs.
It funds innovative, meritorious research
grants. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts
more than 17,000 participants who share the
latest discoveries and developments in the
field. Special conferences throughout the
year present novel data across a wide
variety of topics in cancer research,
treatment and patient care.
The AACR publishes five major peer-reviewed
journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer
Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics;
Molecular Cancer Research; and Cancer
Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
The AACR’s most recent publication and its
sixth major journal, Cancer Prevention
Research, is dedicated exclusively to cancer
prevention, from preclinical research to
clinical trials.
The AACR also publishes CR, a magazine for
cancer survivors and their families, patient
advocates, physicians and scientists. CR
provides a forum for sharing essential,
evidence-based information and perspectives
on progress in cancer research, survivorship
and advocacy.
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