Association of pregnancy loss with breast cancer in Babil governorate's women

Abstract EN

Background : the most common type of cancer among females is breast cancer.

throughout 2016, 897 women died from that disease which is recorded as the first cause of cancer‑related mortality among Iraqi females after bronchogenic cancer (annual statistical report 2016) ; it has been proposed that an interrupted pregnancy might increase a woman's risk of breast cancer since breast cells could proliferate without the later protective effect of differentiation.

previous cross‑sectional studies revealed a considerable lack of knowledge regarding the risk factors.

Objective : the objective of this study is to investigate the possible significant association between female breast cancer and pregnancy loss in Babil governorate's women.

materials and methods : this was a case–control study which was conducted at oncology unit in Merjan teaching hospital and Babylon teaching hospital for maternity and children.

a sample of 50 patients with established breast cancer and 100 healthy women without breast cancer as the control study group.

data were collected by interviewing both groups using a questionnaire about sociodemographic characteristics, reproductive factors, and medical history of other disease.

data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 25, and p ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results : the most common type of breast cancer is invasive ductal carcinoma (48%) followed by ductal carcinoma in situ (34%) and then invasive lobular carcinoma (18%).

most of our patient diagnosed at stage ii and iii (80%) with a mean age at the diagnosis 50.36 ± 5.84.

among all study variables, only early menopausal age is a risk factor for breast cancer in our patients ; p < 0.001.

there was no significant association between breast cancer and other reproductive factors, demographic characters, and chronic diseases.

Conclusion : in Babil governorate's women, this study shows no statistically significant difference in pregnancy loss between breast cancer patients and healthy control group.

the most common breast cancer is invasive ductal carcinoma, and most of the patients present at stage ii and iii.

among the study variable, only early age of menopause is a risk factor for breast cancer.