What is known?
Breast cancer survival is largely attributed to the severity of cancer at diagnosis, including stage, grade, and hormone receptors status.
It is unclear which subgroups of Australian women are more likely to have a higher severity of breast cancer at diagnosis in the Australian population.
What is new?
We carried out an analysis of the results based on a study of a large cohort of over 3300 women diagnosed with breast cancer in Queensland. We found that women who did not have regular mammograms had greater odds of being diagnosed with high severity cancer than those who had biennial mammograms.
Most of the established risk factors for being diagnosed with breast cancer such as older age, smoking, longer duration of menstruation, use of hormone replacement therapy, and family history of breast and ovarian cancer were associated with lower odds of being diagnosed with high severity cancer.
What does this mean?
The study highlighted the benefit of regular breast cancer screening in reducing severity of disease at diagnosis. It also identified subgroups of women who were more likely to have more severe cancers and should be particularly encouraged to participate in regular mammography screening.
Contact: Kou Kou
Reference: Kou K, Cameron J, Aitken JF, Youl P, Turrell G, Chambers S, Dunn J, Pyke C, Baade PD. Factors associated with being diagnosed with high severity of breast cancer: a population-based study in Queensland, Australia. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. 2020; doi: 10.1007/s10549-020-05905-x.