Associations of clothing size, adiposity and weight change with risk of postmenopausal breast cancer in the UK Women's Cohort Study (UKWCS).
OBJECTIVES
Breast cancer is associated with overweight and obesity after menopause. However, clothing size as a proxy of adiposity in predicting postmenopausal breast cancer is not widely studied. We aimed to explore the relationships between postmenopausal breast cancer risk with adipose indicators (including clothing sizes) and weight change over adulthood.


DESIGN
Prospective cohort study.


SETTING
England, Wales and Scotland.


PARTICIPANTS
17 781 postmenopausal women from the UK Women's Cohort Study.


PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURE
Incident cases of malignant breast cancers (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 9 code 174 and ICD 10 code C50).


RESULTS
From 282 277 person-years follow-up, there were 946 incident breast cancer cases with an incidence rate of 3.35 per 1000 women. Body mass index (HR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.07), blouse size (HR: 1.10; 1.03 to 1.18), waist circumference (HR: 1.07; 1.01 to 1.14) and skirt size (HR: 1.14;1.06 to 1.22) had positive associations with postmenopausal breast cancer after adjustment for potential confounders. Increased weight over adulthood (HR: 1.02; 1.01 to 1.03) was also associated with increased risk for postmenopausal breast cancer.


CONCLUSIONS
Blouse and skirt sizes can be used as adipose indicators in predicting postmenopausal breast cancer. Maintaining healthy body weight over adulthood is an effective measure in the prevention of postmenopausal breast cancer.
['Moy|Foong Ming|FM|0000-0002-0306-4419', 'Greenwood|Darren C|DC|', 'Cade|Janet E|JE|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D015992:Body Mass Index D001943:Breast Neoplasms D003020:Clothing D015331:Cohort Studies D005260:Female D005500:Follow-Up Studies D006801:Humans D015994:Incidence D008875:Middle Aged D009765:Obesity D017698:Postmenopause D006113:United Kingdom D055105:Waist Circumference D015430:Weight Gain
weight change blouse size skirt size Uk women cohort post-menopausal breast cancer