• Manon Cairat, Sabina Rinaldi, Anne-Sophie Navionis, Isabelle Romieu, Carine Biessy, Vivian Viallon, Anja Olsen, Anne Tjønneland, Agnès Fournier, Gianluca Severi, Marina Kvaskoff, Renée T Fortner, Rudolf Kaaks, Krasimira Aleksandrova, Matthias B Schulze, Giovanna Masala, Rosario Tumino, Sabina Sieri, Chiara Grasso, Amalia Mattiello, Inger T Gram, Karina Standahl Olsen, Antonio Agudo, Pilar Amiano Etxezarreta, Maria-Jose Sánchez, Carmen Santiuste, Aurelio Barricarte, Evelyn Monninkhof, Anouk E Hiensch, David Muller, Melissa A Merritt, Ruth C Travis, Elisabete Weiderpass, Marc J Gunter, and Laure Dossus.
• Nutrition and Metabolism Branch, International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, 150 cours Albert Thomas, 69372, Lyon, CEDEX 08, France.
• Bmc Med. 2022 Apr 18; 20 (1): 118118.

BackgroundInflammation has been hypothesized to play a role in the development and progression of breast cancer and might differently impact breast cancer risk among pre and postmenopausal women. We performed a nested case-control study to examine whether pre-diagnostic circulating concentrations of adiponectin, leptin, c-reactive protein (CRP), tumour necrosis factor-α, interferon-γ and 6 interleukins were associated with breast cancer risk, overall and by menopausal status.MethodsPre-diagnostic levels of inflammatory biomarkers were measured in plasma from 1558 case-control pairs from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. We used conditional logistic regression to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) of breast cancer at blood collection, per one standard deviation increase in biomarker concentration.ResultsCases were diagnosed at a mean age of 61.4 years on average 8.6 years after blood collection. No statistically significant association was observed between inflammatory markers and breast cancer risk overall. In premenopausal women, borderline significant inverse associations were observed for leptin, leptin-to-adiponectin ratio and CRP [OR= 0.89 (0.77-1.03), OR= 0.88 (0.76-1.01) and OR= 0.87 (0.75-1.01), respectively] while positive associations were observed among postmenopausal women [OR= 1.16 (1.05-1.29), OR= 1.11 (1.01-1.23), OR= 1.10 (0.99-1.22), respectively]. Adjustment for BMI strengthened the estimates in premenopausal women [leptin: OR = 0.83 (0.68-1.00), leptin-to-adiponectin ratio: OR = 0.80 (0.66-0.97), CRP: OR = 0.85 (0.72-1.00)] but attenuated the estimates in postmenopausal women [leptin: OR = 1.09 (0.96-1.24), leptin-to-adiponectin ratio: OR = 1.02 (0.89-1.16), CRP: OR = 1.04 (0.92-1.16)].ConclusionsAssociations between CRP, leptin and leptin-to-adiponectin ratio with breast cancer risk may represent the dual effect of obesity by menopausal status although this deserves further investigation.© 2022. The Author(s).

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