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In the Pink month - the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we publish below a report to share with readers a recent study which suggests that taking antibiotics may increase risk of breast cancer.
The study published in Sept 15, 2010 issue of Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety shows a slightly increased risk of breast cancer in women who ever used antibiotics compared with those who did not take them.
Sergentanis T.N. and colleagues from the University of Athens in Athens, Greece, authors of the study, said some, but not all early studies have already found an association between use of antibiotics and elevated breast cancer risk.
For the study, the researchers identified five case-control studies involving 13,069 cases and 73,920 controls from major medical databases like Medline, Cochrane, and EMBASE databases, which they believed were eligible for their meta-analysis.
They found those who had ever taken antibiotics were 17.5 percent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer. A meta-regression analysis also shows a borderline dose-response effect of antibiotics on the risk of breast cancer.
The researchers concluded "this is a finding with potentially important public health implications, which should be further examined in the literature."
One explanation is that women who have ever used antibiotics may have a weaker immunity against cancer. It is well known by some researchers that a person's immunity can be a big determinant for cancer risk.
Early in 2003, Velicer C.M. and colleagues from the University of Washington cited a hypothesis proposed by others in Cancer Causes & Control, which states that antibiotics destroy intestinal microflora that would otherwise metabolise phytochemicals from edible plants into compounds that may protect against cancer.
Velicer et al. extended the hypothesis by proposing that antibiotic use affects breast cancer risk through their effects on immune and inflammatory factors such as cytokines, T lymphocytes, prostaglandins and matrix metalloproteinases, in addition to their disruption of phytochemical and estrogen metabolism involving the intestinal microflora.
The researchers suggested that some mechanisms may boost breast cancer risk while others may increase the risk, depending upon the type of antibiotic used.
Celiver et al said in their report that an earlier study linked long-term use of antibiotic for recurrent urinary-tract infections with an increased risk of breast cancer.
Breast cancer is expected to be diagnosed in more than 175,000 women and kill 50,000 each year in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute. One in eight women in this country is expected to develop the disease in their lifetime.
More reports will be published here in the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month to help readers understand risk factors for breast cancers so that they may come away with practical ideas to help diminish said risk..
