Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 7, 1994 TAG: 9407070137
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Traditionally women have been told that having a child helps ward off breast cancer. But the new findings suggest the link between pregnancy and cancer is more complex.
The study compared the risk of breast cancer in women who have had one child and those who remained childless. For the first 15 years after they gave birth, the mothers' risk was higher than the other women's. But then it became lower.
The older a woman is when she has a child, the higher her risk of breast cancer immediately after delivery.
For instance, a 35-year-old woman who just had her first child faces a 41 percent higher risk of breast cancer than does a childless woman the same age. But by age 59, the mother's risk is 21 percent lower than that of the childless woman.
A 35-year-old woman who gave birth at age 25 has an 8 percent higher risk of breast cancer than does a childless woman the same age. At age 59, her risk is 29 percent lower.
The risk is lowest in those who give birth at age 20. By the time they reach 30, it is just 2 percent higher than the childless woman's, and at 59 it is 32 percent lower.
The study, directed by Dr. Mats Lambe of University Hospital in Uppsala, Sweden, was published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. It was based on a review of 12,666 women with breast cancer and 62,121 the same age who had not gotten the disease.
The researchers speculate that pregnancy increases the short-term risk of cancer by stimulating the growth of cells that have already begun the early stages of malignancy.
by CNB