Are work-related stressors associated with diagnosis of more advanced stages of incident breast cancers?
OBJECTIVE
To assess the relation between work-related stressors and breast cancer incidence and prognostic characteristics (estrogen receptor status, grade, lymph node status, size, stage) at the time of diagnosis.


METHODS
The 18,932 women included in the Danish Nurse Cohort reported work-related stressors in 1993 and again in 1999 and were followed until the end of 2003 in national registries. Prognostic characteristics were obtained from a clinical database and fewer than 0.1% were lost to follow up.


RESULTS
During follow-up, 455 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Neither women with high work pressure (HR = 1.17; 95% CI: 0.79, 1.73) nor women with self-reported low influence on work organization (0.98; 0.69, 1.39) or long working hours (0.93; 0.54, 1.58) were at higher risk of breast cancer than women with no such stressors. Women with high work tempo had a slightly higher risk of breast cancer (1.25; 1.02, 1.54) than women with a suitable work tempo, but there was no dose-response effect. There were no clear differences in the prognostic characteristics of breast tumors diagnosed in women with and without work-related stressors.


CONCLUSIONS
Work-related stressors do not affect breast cancer risk or the prognostic characteristics of incident breast cancers at the time of diagnosis. These results may be a comfort to working women and can hopefully prevent self-blaming among women who develop breast cancer.
Nielsen
Naja Rod
NR
National Institute of Public Health, Øster Farimagsgade 5A, Copenhagen, Denmark. nrn@niph.dk
Stahlberg
Claudia
C
Strandberg-Larsen
Katrine
K
Kristensen
Tage S
TS
Zhang
Zuo-Feng
ZF
Hundrup
Yrsa Andersen
YA
Grønbaek
Morten
M
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011379:Prognosis; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014937:Work / Q000523:psychology*