Free β-human chorionic gonadotropin, total human chorionic gonadotropin and maternal risk of breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: We investigated whether the free β-human chorionic gonadotropin (free β-hCG) would provide additional information to that provided by total hCG alone and thus be useful in future epidemiological studies relating hCG to maternal breast cancer risk. MATERIALS & METHODS: Cases (n = 159)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Future Oncology
Main Authors: Toriola, A.T., Tolockiene, E., Schock, H., Surcel, H.M., Zeleniuch-Jacquotte, A., Wadell, G., Toniolo, P., Lundin, E., Grankvist, K., Lukanova, A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Northern Sweden
Online Access:https://serval.unil.ch/notice/serval:BIB_8A43127D5754
https://doi.org/10.2217/fon.13.208
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Summary:BACKGROUND: We investigated whether the free β-human chorionic gonadotropin (free β-hCG) would provide additional information to that provided by total hCG alone and thus be useful in future epidemiological studies relating hCG to maternal breast cancer risk. MATERIALS & METHODS: Cases (n = 159) and controls (n = 286) were a subset of our previous study within the Northern Sweden Maternity Cohort on total hCG during primiparous pregnancy and breast cancer risk. RESULTS: The associations between total hCG (hazard ratio: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.49-1.27), free β-hCG (hazard ratio: 0.85; 95% CI: 0.33-2.18) and maternal risk of breast cancer were very similar in all analyses and mutual adjustment for either one had minor effects on the risk estimates. CONCLUSION: In the absence of a reliable assay on intact hCG, total hCG alone can be used in epidemiological studies investigating hCG and breast cancer risk, as free β-hCG does not appear to provide any additional information.

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