Abstract
Objective
To describe the association between breastfeeding and ovarian cancer risk in two prospective cohorts.
Materials & methods
We pooled data from the Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study II. There were 391 cases of epithelial ovarian cancer diagnosed among 149,693 parous women with up to 16 years of follow-up. Data were analyzed using multivariate Cox proportional hazards models, controlling for age, parity, duration of oral contraceptive use, tubal ligation, and age at menarche.
Results
Ever breastfeeding was associated with a non-significant reduction in ovarian cancer risk compared with never breastfeeding (RR = 0.86, 95% CI 0.70–1.06); the median duration of breastfeeding among women who breastfed was nine months. Breastfeeding of 18 or more months was associated with a significant decrease in ovarian cancer risk compared to never breastfeeding (RR = 0.66, 95% CI 0.46–0.96). For each month of breastfeeding the relative risk decreased by 2% (RR = 0.98 per month, 95% CI 0.97–1.00).
Conclusions
These data support a linear inverse association between breastfeeding and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer.
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Acknowledgment
Financially supported by grants CA87969 and CA50385 from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Danforth was supported in part by a National Cancer Institute Training grant in cancer epidemiology, CA09001. Dr. Colditz was supported in part by the American Cancer Society Cissy Hornung Clinical Research Professorship.
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Danforth, K.N., Tworoger, S.S., Hecht, J.L. et al. Breastfeeding and risk of ovarian cancer in two prospective cohorts. Cancer Causes Control 18, 517–523 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-007-0130-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-007-0130-2