Fatty-acid composition of breast and iliac adipose tissue in breast-cancer patients.

In order to determine to what extent the fatty-acid composition of breast adipose tissue is representative of the body-fat composition in breast carcinoma, we compared the fatty-acid composition of breast adipose tissue to that of iliac fat in breast-cancer patients. Triglycerides from the 2 sites were purified by thin-layer chromatography and fatty-acid composition was determined by capillary gas chromatography. Compared with iliac fat, mammary fat was higher in saturated (33.2 +/- 3.9 vs. 24.4 +/- 1.6%; p = 0.0001) and lower in mono-unsaturated (48.0 +/- 2.2 vs. 54.8 +/- 2.7%; p = 0.0001) and poly-unsaturated fatty acids (16.6 +/- 3.7 vs. 18.0 +/- 3.1%; p = 0.0001). A positive correlation was found between the 2 sites for linoleate (r = 0.95; p = 0.0003), alpha-linolenate (r = 0.83; p = 0.01), palmitate (r = 0.78; p = 0.02) and palmitoleate (r = 0.76; p = 0.02). No relationship was observed for stearic and oleic acids. We conclude that breast and iliac fat differ with regard to fatty-acid composition. The interpretation of fatty-acid composition of the body stores in breast-cancer patients, as an indicator of long-term intake of dietary fat, should take into account the sampling site of stored lipids.