Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh, UPMC Cancer Pavilion, Suite 4C, 5150 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15232, USA.
Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Breast Cancer Res. 2019 Apr 17;21(1):50. doi: 10.1186/s13058-019-1133-0.
Telomeres and telomerase play key roles in the chromosomal maintenance and stability. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that longer telomeres are associated with increased risk of several cancer types. However, epidemiological data for telomere length and risk of breast cancer are sparse.
We prospectively studied the association between telomere length and risk of breast cancer in 14,305 middle-aged or older Chinese women of the Singapore Chinese Health Study including 442 incident breast cancer cases after 12.3 years of follow-up. Relative telomere length in peripheral blood leukocytes was quantified using a validated monochrome multiple quantitative polymerase chain reaction method. The Cox proportional hazard regression method was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for breast cancer associated with longer telomeres after adjustment for potential confounders.
Longer telomeres were significantly associated with higher risk of breast cancer in a dose-dependent manner (P = 0.006); the highest quartile of telomere length was associated with a statistically significant 47% higher risk of breast cancer compared with the lowest quartile of telomere length after the adjustment for age and other known risk factors for breast cancer (HR = 1.47, 95% CI = 1.11, 1.94).
The findings of the present study support the hypothesis that longer telomeres may be a risk factor for breast cancer. Telomere length in peripheral blood leukocytes may be developed as a biomarker for breast cancer risk prediction.
端粒和端粒酶在染色体维持和稳定性中起着关键作用。最近的流行病学研究表明，端粒较长与多种癌症类型的风险增加有关。然而，端粒长度与乳腺癌风险的流行病学数据很少。
我们前瞻性地研究了 14305 名新加坡华人健康研究中的中老年中国女性（包括 442 例在 12.3 年随访后发生的乳腺癌病例）中，端粒长度与乳腺癌风险之间的关联。使用经过验证的单色多重聚合酶链反应方法定量外周血白细胞中的相对端粒长度。Cox 比例风险回归方法用于估计与端粒较长相关的乳腺癌的风险比 (HR) 和相应的 95%置信区间 (CI)，在调整潜在混杂因素后。
端粒较长与乳腺癌风险呈剂量依赖性显著相关 (P = 0.006)；与端粒长度最低四分位数相比，端粒长度最高四分位数的乳腺癌风险增加了 47%，具有统计学意义 (HR = 1.47, 95% CI = 1.11, 1.94)。
本研究的结果支持端粒较长可能是乳腺癌的危险因素的假设。外周血白细胞中的端粒长度可能被开发为乳腺癌风险预测的生物标志物。
