Research project Premenopausal breast cancer makes up more than 20 percent of all breast cancer cases in Sweden and rates are increasing. Substantial efforts are needed to curb this development.
The project goal is to identify environmental exposures, occurring during pregnancy, that are associated with premenopausal breast cancer, and that can be effectively targeted to reduce cancer incidence.
This breast cancer often has an aggressive phenotype, for example, it is more likely to be of higher stage at detection, hormone receptor negative and have a basal like subtype. Therefore, this age group is the focus of this project and where I believe risk factor reduction and identification of high-risk individuals could have a high impact.
The overall aim of this project is to determine the impact of pregnancy exposures on premenopausal breast cancer risk. Later, the plan is to assess if such exposures are associated with physical changes in breast tissue and eventually use the findings to identify effect biomarkers indicating risk. Identifying high-risk women and reducing risk factors during pregnancy could have a major impact on breast cancer prevention.
