Risk factors of breast cancer among women in Central India

Most common malignancy affecting women worldwide is breast cancer accounting for more than one million cases. The exposure to various risk factors attributes the geographical variation in incidence of breast cancer. Thus, study of risk factors of breast cancer is important and might contribute to current knowledge on this important topic. Hence the present study was carried out to study risk factors of breast cancer in Central India. In a tertiary care hospital based longitudinal study, 85 histopathologically or cytologically confirmed cases of breast cancer were enrolled. Particulars age at menarche, menopause and first full term pregnancy, marital status, parity of patient and history and duration of breast feeding and family history of breast cancer in first degree relative were taken. Mean age of occurrence of carcinoma breast was 50.01± 11.592 years, of menarche was 15.21 ±1.381 years, of menopause was 44.94±5.016 years, of reproductive age was 29.52 ±4.661 years, of first full term pregnancy was23.13 ± 4.2556 years. Married patients were 82(96.47%) of patients, 81(95.3%) had no family history. 82(96.5%) of cases had breast fed their children and mean duration of breast feeding was19.2± 9.932 months. None of the risk factors described in literature were classically seen in present study further suggesting the awareness of breast cancer and breast self examination the need of hour in current scenario in rural India.