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Benign breast disease and breast cancer risk in African women: a case–control study

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Abstract

Purpose

To examine the association between benign breast disease (BBD) and breast cancer (BC) in a heterogeneous population of African women.

Methods

BC cases and controls were enrolled in three sub-Saharan African countries, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Uganda, between 1998 and 2018. Multivariable logistic regression was used to test the association between BBD and BC. Risk factors dually associated with BBD and BC were selected. Using a parametric mediation analysis model, we assessed if selected BC risk factors were mediated by BBD.

Results

Of 6,274 participants, 55.6% (3,478) were breast cancer cases. 360 (5.7%) self-reported BBD. Fibroadenoma (46.8%) was the most commonly reported BBD. Women with a self-reported history of BBD had greater odds of developing BC than those without (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.47, 95% CI 1.13–1.91). Biopsy-confirmed BBD was associated with BC (aOR 2.25, 95% CI 1.26–4.02). BBD did not significantly mediate the effects of any of the selected BC risk factors.

Conclusions

In this study, BBD was associated with BC and did not significantly mediate the effects of selected BC risk factors.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed during this study are not publicly available due to concerns about patient privacy, in particular, the breast cancer cases recruited from the four hospitals involved in the study.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the study participants enrolled in the African Breast Cancer Study and thank our staff for their assistance and support throughout the research project. This manuscript is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Stella O. Odedina (nee Akinleye). This study was supported by the National Institute of Health (R01CA089085, U01CA161032, R01CA228198, R01MD013452) and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (TREND21675016, Komen Scholar).

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Health (R01CA089085, U01CA161032, R01CA228198, R01MD013452) and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (TREND21675016, Komen Scholar).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Olasubomi J. Omoleye & Olufunmilayo I. Olopade

  2. Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics and Global Health, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Olasubomi J. Omoleye, Anna E. Woodard, Olufunmilayo I. Olopade & Dezheng Huo

  3. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jincong Q. Freeman

  4. Department of Health Promotion and Education, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

    Mojisola Oluwasanu

  5. Department of Radiology, University of Ibadan College of Medicine, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

    Adenike Adeniji-Sofoluwe

  6. Data Science Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Anna E. Woodard

  7. Department of Computer Science, Lagos State University, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria

    Benjamin S. Aribisala

  8. Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

    Prisca O. Adejumo

  9. Department of Radiation Oncology, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

    Atara Ntekim

  10. Department of Surgery, Mulago Hospital, Mulago, Kampala, Uganda

    Timothy Makumbi

  11. Hôpital Général Yaoundé, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Paul Ndom

  12. Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

    IkeOluwapo O. Ajayi

  13. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, 5841 S. Maryland Avenue, MC 2000, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Dezheng Huo

Authors
  1. Olasubomi J. Omoleye
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  2. Jincong Q. Freeman
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  3. Mojisola Oluwasanu
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design, data acquisition, and data analysis/interpretation. The first draft of the manuscript was written by OJO and all authors contributed to manuscript revision for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dezheng Huo.

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Competing interests

Olufunmilayo I. Olopade is a co-founder of CancerIQ, sits on the advisory boards of 54gene and Tempus, and has received research funding from Ayala Pharmaceuticals, Cepheid, Color Genomics, Novartis, and Roche/Genentech. All other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Ethical approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committees of The University of Ibadan, The University of Chicago, The University of Kampala, and the University of Yaoundé.

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Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Omoleye, O.J., Freeman, J.Q., Oluwasanu, M. et al. Benign breast disease and breast cancer risk in African women: a case–control study. Cancer Causes Control 35, 787–798 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01837-1

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