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Are work-related stressors associated with diagnosis of more advanced stages of incident breast cancers?

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Abstract

Objective

To assess the relation between work-related stressors and breast cancer incidence and prognostic characteristics (estrogen receptor status, grade, lymph node status, size, stage) at the time of diagnosis.

Methods

The 18,932 women included in the Danish Nurse Cohort reported work-related stressors in 1993 and again in 1999 and were followed until the end of 2003 in national registries. Prognostic characteristics were obtained from a clinical database and fewer than 0.1% were lost to follow up.

Results

During follow-up, 455 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Neither women with high work pressure (HR = 1.17; 95% CI: 0.79, 1.73) nor women with self-reported low influence on work organization (0.98; 0.69, 1.39) or long working hours (0.93; 0.54, 1.58) were at higher risk of breast cancer than women with no such stressors. Women with high work tempo had a slightly higher risk of breast cancer (1.25; 1.02, 1.54) than women with a suitable work tempo, but there was no dose-response effect. There were no clear differences in the prognostic characteristics of breast tumors diagnosed in women with and without work-related stressors.

Conclusions

Work-related stressors do not affect breast cancer risk or the prognostic characteristics of incident breast cancers at the time of diagnosis. These results may be a comfort to working women and can hopefully prevent self-blaming among women who develop breast cancer.

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Acknowledgement

We thank the staff and participants of the Danish Nurse Cohort. We also thank the staff at the Danish Breast Cancer Group Corporation register. Financial support: The study was supported by funds from the Danish Cancer Society.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Public Health, Øster Farimagsgade 5A, 2.sal, 1399, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Naja Rod Nielsen, Katrine Strandberg-Larsen, Yrsa Andersen Hundrup & Morten Grønbæk

  2. Department of Epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, USA

    Naja Rod Nielsen & Zuo-Feng Zhang

  3. Department of Gynaecology, Rigshospitalet University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Claudia Stahlberg

  4. National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Tage S. Kristensen

Authors
  1. Naja Rod Nielsen
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  2. Claudia Stahlberg
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  3. Katrine Strandberg-Larsen
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  4. Tage S. Kristensen
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  5. Zuo-Feng Zhang
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  6. Yrsa Andersen Hundrup
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  7. Morten Grønbæk
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Naja Rod Nielsen.

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Nielsen, N.R., Stahlberg, C., Strandberg-Larsen, K. et al. Are work-related stressors associated with diagnosis of more advanced stages of incident breast cancers?. Cancer Causes Control 19, 297–303 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-007-9092-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-007-9092-7

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