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Severe acne and risk of breast cancer

  • Epidemiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Hormonal imbalance early in life is thought to be associated with breast cancer risk. Severe acne may arise from hormonal imbalance and could serve as an indicator of increased breast cancer risk. We explored whether severe acne was associated with incident breast cancer.

Methods

We used data from the Sister Study, a large (n = 50,884) prospective cohort of women who had a sister diagnosed with breast cancer, but who were free of breast cancer themselves at baseline. Participants completed a structured questionnaire that included demographics, lifestyle factors, and medical history, including any diagnosis of severe acne. Adjusted Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for the association of severe acne and breast cancer (invasive disease or ductal carcinoma in situ).

Results

During an average of 8.4 years of follow-up, 3049 breast cancer cases were diagnosed. Ever being diagnosed with severe acne was associated with a higher risk of breast cancer (HR 1.23; 95% CI 0.98, 1.54), particularly in women who were diagnosed prior to age 18 years (HR 1.40; 95% CI 1.04, 1.90). Results were similar when limited to invasive cancers.

Conclusions

Our study supports a non-significant positive association between severe acne—a potential marker of hormonal imbalance—and breast cancer risk. These findings suggest that severe acne, when considered along with other risk factors, could help to identify women who may be at a higher risk of breast cancer.

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Article 17 September 2015

Sara Moradi Tuchayi, Evgenia Makrantonaki, … Christos C. Zouboulis

Change history

  • 21 June 2021

    The ESM word file was revised due to track changes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Nicole Niehoff and Ann von Holle for their review of a version of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (project Z01-ES044005 to DPS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Durham, USA

    John D. Murphy, Dale Sandler, Alexandra J. White & Katie M. O’Brien

  2. Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 135 Dauer Drive, 2101 McGavran-Greenberg Hall, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7435, USA

    John D. Murphy

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Correspondence to John D. Murphy.

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The ESM word file was revised without track changes.

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Murphy, J.D., Sandler, D., White, A.J. et al. Severe acne and risk of breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res Treat 177, 487–495 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-019-05302-z

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