Surveillance and Health Equity Science, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA.
J Natl Cancer Inst. 2022 Oct 6;114(10):1420-1424. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djac063.
Reduced age-related terminal duct lobular unit (TDLU) involution has been linked to increased breast cancer risk and triple-negative breast cancer. Associations of TDLU involution levels with race and ethnicity remain incompletely explored. Herein, we examined the association between genetic ancestry and TDLU involution in normal breast tissue donated by 2014 healthy women in the United States. Women of African ancestry were more likely than European women to have increased TDLU counts (odds ratio [OR]trend = 1.36, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.07 to 1.74), acini counts per TDLU (OR = 1.47, 95% CI = 1.06 to 2.03), and median TDLU span (ORtrend = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.08 to 1.91), indicating lower involution, whereas East Asian descendants were associated with decreased TDLU counts (ORtrend = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.35 to 0.78) after controlling for potential confounders. These associations are consistent with the racial variations in incidence rates of triple-negative breast cancer in the United States and suggest opportunities for future work examining whether TDLU involution may mediate the racial differences in subtype-specific breast cancer risk.
端导管小叶单位（TDLU）的退化与乳腺癌风险增加和三阴性乳腺癌有关。TDLU 退化程度与种族和民族的相关性仍未得到充分探索。在此，我们在美国 2014 年健康女性捐赠的正常乳腺组织中，研究了遗传祖源与 TDLU 退化之间的关系。非洲裔女性比欧洲裔女性的 TDLU 计数增加的可能性更大（比值比[OR]趋势=1.36，95%置信区间[CI]为 1.07 至 1.74），每个 TDLU 的腺泡计数（OR=1.47，95%CI=1.06 至 2.03）和 TDLU 中位数跨度（OR 趋势=1.44，95%CI=1.08 至 1.91），这表明退化程度较低，而东亚后裔与 TDLU 计数减少相关（OR 趋势=0.52，95%CI=0.35 至 0.78），在控制了潜在混杂因素后。这些关联与美国三阴性乳腺癌发病率的种族差异一致，并表明未来有机会研究 TDLU 退化是否可能介导特定乳腺癌风险的种族差异。
