American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 110, No. 1: 88-98
Copyright © 1979 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
research-article |
LATERALITY OF BREAST CANCER IN FAMILIES1
2Department of Biomedical and Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, U. of California Berkeley, CA
3Department of Epidemiology and International Health, School of Medicine, U. of California San Francisco, CA
4Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Creighton U., Omaha NE
Reprint requests to Dr. M.-C. King, c/o Editor, Dept. of Epidemiology and International Health, U. of California, San Francisco, CA 94143.
A new method for analyzing concordance for a binary variable in extended pedigrees was developed to study tumor laterality in families with high incidence of breast cancer. It was found that related breast cancer patients In 15 high-risk Midwestern US families did not have their tumors on the same side more frequently than would be expected by chance. This finding is in contrast to previous studies in London and Denmark that reported a significant concordance for tumor laterality in related breast cancer patients. This result may reflect an Increasing Incidence of sporadic breast cancer in genetically susceptible families or, alternatively, Independent determination of cancer susceptibility and tumor laterality.
breast neoplasms; family; genetics; human; hereditary diseases; laterallty; neoplasms; statistics
1 This work was supported by contract no. CB-44003 and grant no. CA-13556 from the National Cancer Institute.