LESBIANS MORE LIKELY TO GET BREAST CANCER, STUDY SAYS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 5, 1993                   TAG: 9302050009
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short
LESBIANS MORE LIKELY TO GET BREAST CANCER, STUDY SAYS
Lesbians have a one-in-three lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, two to three times that of heterosexual women, according to a study by a National Cancer Institute researcher.
Suzanne G. Haynes, an epidemiologist, said Thursday that she found known breast-cancer risk factors such as alcohol use, smoking, lack of childbearing and poor access to health care all were more common among lesbians than among heterosexual women.
The National Cancer Institute estimates that about one in eight U.S. women will develop breast cancer. Lesbians face a lifetime risk of about one in three, Haynes said.
"When I added up all the risks. . . . I came up with between a two- and threefold higher risk of developing breast cancer," she said.
Having children cuts a woman's risk of breast cancer, but 70 percent of lesbians were childless, the data showed. That alone makes lesbians 80 percent more likely to develop breast cancer and to die from it, Haynes said.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB