Breast cancer research and treatment
Change in alcohol consumption and all-cause mortality among postmenopausal women diagnosed with breast cancer
By Rees S, Bodelon C, Chakraborty S and 7 others.
Abstract
Purpose
Evidence is inconsistent regarding an association between alcohol consumption and survival following a breast cancer diagnosis; therefore, we examined how change in alcohol consumption affects all-cause mortality (ACM) in a population of breast cancer survivors.
Methods
We prospectively assessed pre-diagnosis, pre- to post-diagnosis, and post-diagnosis change in alcohol consumption among 1,558 postmenopausal women (mean age-at-diagnosis: 71 years) diagnosed with non-metastatic invasive breast cancer from the American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study-II Nutrition Cohort (baseline: 1992-1993). Five categories of alcohol intake were determined at each assessment; change in alcohol consumption was categorized as stable, quit, reduced, and increased. Change occurred at a median of two years before (pre-diagnosis) and two years after (post-diagnosis) diagnosis. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the associations between change groups and ACM.