Hormonal factors are implicated in tumor progression and it is possible that factors influencing breast cancer induction could affect prognosis. Our study investigated the effects of menstrual risk factors on tumor characteristics and survival in postmenopausal breast cancer.We used a nationwide, population-based, case-case design of 2,640 Swedish women who were 50 to 74 years old and had postmenopausal breast cancer during 1993 to 1995. Follow-up was conducted until 31 December 2000. We used polytomous multiple logistic regression to investigate the relationships between menstrual factors (age at menarche, cycle length, irregular menstruation, lifetime number of menstrual cycles, and age at menopause), tumor characteristics (size, grade, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor [PR] status, lymph node involvement, and histology), and Cox proportional hazards modeling for 5-year survival.Younger ages at menarche were significantly associated with grade and lymph node involvement. Women with an age at menarche of 11 years or younger had a more than twofold excess risk of medium-grade (odds ratio [OR] = 2.05; 95

作者：Chantal C, Orgéas；Per, Hall；Lena U, Rosenberg；Kamila, Czene

来源：Breast cancer research : BCR 2008 年 10卷 6期