Progesterone concentrations in samples of saliva from adolescent girls living in Britain and Thailand, two countries where women are at widely differing risk of breast cancer.
Menstrual-cycle patterns of salivary progesterone concentration were obtained for 131 and 245 adolescent girls up to 4 years postmenarche living in Britain and Thailand respectively. These patterns were graded on a scale of 1 (little or no activity) to 5 (activity similar to that exhibited by the mature premenopausal woman) and the frequency of these grades within groups of girls from each centre was analysed. The major finding was that British girls exhibited a predominance of higher grades of progesterone activity when compared with their Thai counterparts (n = 2 x 58) when matched for chronological and gynaecological ages (P approximately 0.002). This was particularly so for the girls from these two matched groups in the gynaecological age range 2-4 years (P approximately 0.03). The major contribution to this significant difference between the two groups is attributed to the greater effect of chronological age on progesterone secretion in the British girls (P approximately 0.03) compared with the Thai girls (P approximately 0.29). These findings may have implications for facilitating our understanding of the reason for the differing risk of breast cancer in women in both countries.
Institute of Health and Research, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
V
V
Danutra
A
A
Turkes
G F
GF
Read
D W
DW
Wilson
V
V
Griffiths
R
R
Jones
K
K
Griffiths
D000293:Adolescent; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology / Q000378:metabolism; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008572:Menarche; D011374:Progesterone / Q000032:analysis*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012463:Saliva / Q000032:analysis*; D013785:Thailand; D013997:Time Factors; D006113:United Kingdom
D011374:Progesterone