Breast cancer risk in Japanese women with special reference to the growth hormone-insulin-like growth factor axis.
Earlier physical maturity in girls, involving an earlier and more marked growth hormone spurt and also an earlier menarche, is a marker of subsequent higher risk to breast cancer. Based on the results of recent research, it is postulated that interaction between growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor and sex steroids at an earlier age, has a major role in stimulating not only linear growth but also precocious proliferative activity in the breasts of adolescent girls. This may promote carcinogenesis in a susceptible mammary epithelium and could partly account for the rising breast cancer mortality rate among both Japanese and Western women.
Stoll
B A
BA
Oncology Department, St. Thomas' Hospital, London, U.K.
D001827:Body Height; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D013006:Growth Hormone / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D011627:Puberty; D012307:Risk Factors; D013002:Somatomedins / Q000502:physiology*
D013002:Somatomedins; D013006:Growth Hormone