Potential Predictive Factors for Breast Cancer Subtypes from a North Cyprus Cohort Analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACTPurposeWe present a first epidemiological survey from North Cyprus to determine predictive factors for breast cancer subtypes.MethodsMore than 300 breast cancer patients, 90% of them having subtype information, are surveyed from the State Hospital in Nicosia between 2006 – 2015 for their demographic, reproductive, genetic, epidemiological factors. The breast cancer subtypes, Estrogen receptor (ER) +/-, Progesterone receptor (PR) +/-, and human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2) +/- status, are determined. Single and multiple variable, regularized regressions, with predictive factors as independent variables, breast cancer subtypes as dependent variables are conducted.ResultsOur cohort differs significantly from larger cohorts (e.g., Breast Cancer Family Registry), in age, menopause status, age of menarche, parity, education, oral contraceptive use, breastfeeding, but the distribution of breast subtypes is not significantly different. Subtype distribution in our cohort is also not different from another Turkish cohort. We show that the ER+ subtype is positively related to age/post-menopause; ER+/PR+ is positively associated with age, but negatively associated with cancer stage; HER2+, which is negatively correlated with ER+ and ER+/PR+, is positively related to cancer stage but negatively associated with age/post-menopause.ConclusionAssuming ER+ and ER+/PR+ to have better prognostic, HER+ to have worse prognostic, then older age and postmenopause seem to be beneficial, smoking and family history of cancer seem to be detrimental. Next steps include looking at potential biomarkers and using cure models to determine long-term survivors.