Alcohol intake increases the risk of breast cancer in early stage patients—study

"Our study increases the limited and mixed evidence base to date regarding the role of alcohol consumption and breast cancer prognosis; namely, that drinking moderate to heavy amounts of alcohol after a breast cancer diagnosis can possibly increase the risk of having a recurrence of breast cancer and dying from breast cancer," lead author Marilyn Kwan, PhD, a research scientist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, told Medscape Medical News said.

Drinking at least 3 to 4 drinks per week affected the prognosis of all women diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer, the study confirms.

The effect is more adverse in overweight and postmenopausal women.

1,897 women studied
The study aimed at evaluating the association between alcohol and recurrence and mortality among early-stage breast cancer survivors looked at 1,897 women.

The women were all diagnosed with invasive early-stage breast cancer during 1997 and 2000 and were participating in the Life After Cancer Epidemiology (LACE) study.

Among the women who consumed alcohol, wine was consumed by 88.5 percent of the women, followed by liquor which was consumed by 42.1 percent women, and beer which was liked by 35.7 percent women.

The median amount of alcohol consumed by the participants was 5.96 g/day.

Postmenopausal, normal weight and estrogen-receptor (ER) positive women were found to consume more alcohol than premenopausal, overweight/obese, and ER-negative women.

The study revelations
293 breast cancer cases were reported as of Sept. 8, 2009, of which 71.9 percent were distant metastases and 273 deaths.

Of the total deaths, 154 i.e.56.4 percent were attributable to breast cancer, 24 i.e. 8.8 percent to other cancers, 32 or 11.7 percent deaths to cardiovascular causes, and 63 or 23.1 percent to other causes.

In all the average follow-up time in the patients was 7.42 years, ranging from 0.11 to 9.62 years.

Further on adjusting factors like age at diagnosis, prediagnosis, body mass index (BMI), total folate intake, stage of disease, hormone-receptor status, tamoxifen use, treatment, and positive lymph nodes, the consumption of 6 g or more of alcohol per day was possibly associated with an increased risk for breast cancer recurrence, the researchers claimed.

The study findings were published online on August 30 in the 'Journal of Clinical Oncology.'