#PR-4. Increased odds of family history for triple-negative breast cancer in Mexican-American but not African-American women.

A final ELLA Binational Breast Cancer Study abstract, presented by Betsy C. Wertheim, M.S., an assistant scientific investigator in the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Arizona Cancer Center, found that having a family history of breast cancer increased the risk of triple-negative breast cancer in Hispanic women but not in African-American women.

Specifically, if Hispanic women had a family history of breast cancer they were at 2.2-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer. These women were also six times more likely to develop triple-negative breast cancer at a young age, but no such association was seen for African-American women.

Wertheim said this risk was confined to Hispanics who were born in Mexico; no such increased risk was seen among American-born Hispanic women.

“It was driven by geography, so we suspect that there is some combination of genetics and environment at play here. What exactly that is, we can’t really say yet,” said Wertheim.

#PR-5. Breast cancer risk factors in U.S.-born and foreign-born Hispanic women from the San Francisco Bay Area.

A final study, the San Francisco Bay Area Breast Cancer Study, presented by Esther John, Ph.D., a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Northern California Cancer Center, compared known breast cancer risk factors in foreign-born Hispanic women and Hispanic women born in the United States.

Among Hispanic women without breast cancer, they found that U.S.-born Hispanic women were more likely to have a family history of breast cancer, have menarche before age 12, use hormone replacement therapy, be obese and consume alcohol. All of these are known risk factors for breast cancer. By contrast, foreign-born Hispanic women without breast cancer had a larger number of children, a longer duration of breast feeding, more physical activity and a higher fiber intake. All of these factors are known to decrease breast cancer.

“Foreign-born Hispanic women have a lower risk for breast cancer than U.S.-born Hispanic women, and differences in reproductive and lifestyle factors explain some of the difference in risk, but not all of it,” said John. “What is interesting is that over the long term, foreign-born Hispanic immigrants adopt behaviors that place them at greater risk for breast cancer.”

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