Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal

Abstract

ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND:
Breastfeeding has been found to provide a measure of protection against uterine, cervical and ovarian cancers as well as breast cancer. . It's long been known that breast cancer is common in situations where women have few children and breast feed for short periods. Various physiopatholoical mechanisms are involved in the protective effect of breast feeding; anovulation , and cellular differentiation of the mammary cells.
OBJECTIVE:
To assess the impact of breast feeding on breast cancer incidence.
METHODS:
One hundred married Women with breast cancer were evaluated to find out the impact of breast feeding on breast cancer incidence in these women .Data on risk factors were collected by self-administered questionnaires .The questionnaire included data like woman's age of having breast cancer ,woman's age at menopause , woman's age of first full term pregnancy , number of pregnancies ,lactation period , the age at menarche ,woman's social habit like smoking , type of contraception ,and family history of breast cancer ,the data were collected and analyzed .
RESULTS:
We studied 100 married women with breast cancer .Their age groups were distributed between 22years and 55 years when they had been discovered to have breast cancer, most of women were house wives (81%).Only three of them were smokers. Seventy nine women had menarche between age of 13-15 years, and only 4 of them had menarche at 16-17 years. Thirteen women had one full term pregnancy, other 48 women had 2- 4 full term pregnancies and only 38women had more than 5full term babies. According to lactation periods we found that 21 women had never lactating their babies, 49 women lactated their children for 7-12 months and only 18 women lactated their children for 19-24 months. Regarding the age of women at first full term baby birth, there were 4 women had their first full term baby at age of 14-17 years ,58 women at age of 18-22 years , 37 women at age of 23-33 years and only one woman at age of 35year.
CONCLUSION:
There was significant increasing risk of breast cancer with reducing periods of lactation (p value <0.001), with decreasing age at menarche (p value<0.001), early age of marriage (p value <0.001), and early age of having first full term baby (p value<0.001) .We can conclude that lactation for more than 24 months can provides important benefits for the women's health, such as reduced risk of breast cancer. There was no evidence of a statistically significant difference in breast cancer risk between subjects who had ever smoked and those who had not. There was a statistically insignificant relationship between a positive Family history of breast cancer, and increasing risk of breast cancer, (p value >0.05).