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. 2024 Feb 27;16(5):953.
doi: 10.3390/cancers16050953.

Lifestyle Factors and Breast Cancer in Females with PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS)

Affiliations

Lifestyle Factors and Breast Cancer in Females with PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS)

Linda A J Hendricks et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Females with PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS) have breast cancer risks up to 76%. This study assessed associations between breast cancer and lifestyle in European female adult PHTS patients. Data were collected via patient questionnaires (July 2020-March 2023) and genetic diagnoses from medical files. Associations between lifestyle and breast cancer were calculated using logistic regression corrected for age. Index patients with breast cancer before PHTS diagnosis (breast cancer index) were excluded for ascertainment bias correction. In total, 125 patients were included who completed the questionnaire at a mean age of 44 years (SD = 13). This included 21 breast cancer indexes (17%) and 39 females who developed breast cancer at 43 years (SD = 9). Breast cancer patients performed about 1.1 times less often 0-1 times/week physical activity than ≥2 times (ORtotal-adj = 0.9 (95%CI 0.3-2.6); consumed daily about 1.2-1.8 times more often ≥1 than 0-1 glasses of alcohol (ORtotal-adj = 1.2 (95%CI 0.4-4.0); ORnon-breastcancer-index-adj = 1.8 (95%CI 0.4-6.9); were about 1.04-1.3 times more often smokers than non-smokers (ORtotal-adj = 1.04 (95%CI 0.4-2.8); ORnon-breastcancer-index-adj = 1.3 (95%CI 0.4-4.2)); and overweight or obesity (72%) was about 1.02-1.3 times less common (ORtotal-adj = 0.98 (95%CI 0.4-2.6); ORnon-breastcancer-index-adj = 0.8 (95%CI 0.3-2.7)). Similar associations between lifestyle and breast cancer are suggested for PHTS and the general population. Despite not being statistically significant, results are clinically relevant and suggest that awareness of the effects of lifestyle on patients' breast cancer risk is important.

Keywords: alcohol drinking; body mass index; breast neoplasm; exercise; hamartoma syndrome; multiple.

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Conflict of interest statement

A.R.M. received funds from AstraZeneca for contributions to sponsored quality assessment and variant interpretation of VUS in BRCA1 and BRCA2. This funding was not related to this study. J.B. received funding support from GSK for an educational activity not related to this study. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Odds ratios for the association between breast cancer and each lifestyle factor, adjusted for age at questionnaire completion. Odds ratios (ORs) are presented with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). Non-smoking includes patients who have never smoked and those who have never smoked but had indoor smoking at home. Smoking includes patients who reported to be current smokers or smokers in the past. The reference category for each lifestyle factor is presented in bold. The vertical line indicates OR = 1.00, meaning no difference. For each group, the number of patients with breast cancer (n) and the total number of patients with the lifestyle risk factor (N) are presented (n/N).

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