Comparative study of breast cancer in Mexican and Mexican-American women

María Elena Martínez, Luis Enrique Gutiérrez-Millan, Melissa Bondy, Adrian Daneri-Navarro, María Mercedes Meza-Montenegro, Ivan Anduro-Corona, Ma Isabel Aramburo-Rubio, Luz María Adriana Balderas-Peña, José Adelfo Barragan-Ruiz, Abenaa Brewster, Graciela Caire-Juvera, Juan Manuel Castro-Cervantes (+27 others)
2010 Health (Irvine, Calif.)  
Breast cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths among Hispanic women in the United States, and in Mexico, it recently became the primary cause of cancer deaths. This malignnancy represents a poorly understood and understudied disease in Hispanic women. The ELLA Binational Breast Cancer Study was established in 2006 as a multi-center study to assess patterns of breast tumor markers, clinical characteristics, and their risk factors in women of Mexican descent. We describe the design and
more » ... lementation of the ELLA Study and provide a risk factor comparison between women in the U.S. and those in Mexico based on a sample of 765 patients (364 in the U.S. and 401 in Mexico). Compared to women in Mexico, U.S. women had significantly (p < 0.05) lower parity (3.2 vs. 3.9 mean live births) and breastfeeding rates (57.5% vs. 80.5%), higher use of oral contraceptives (60.7% vs. 50.1%) and hormone replacement therapy (23.3% vs. 7.6%), and higher family history of breast cancer (15.7% vs. 9.0%). Results show that differences in breast cancer risk factor patterns exist between Mexico and U.S. women. We provide lessons learned from the conduct of our study. Binational studies are an important step in understanding disease patterns and etiology for women in both countries. M. E. Martínez et al. / HEALTH 2 (2010) 1040-1048
doi:10.4236/health.2010.29153 fatcat:ltquzn5iabcz5os7dc55kjdj5i