Institutes in the Lead: Identifying Environmental Factors in Breast Cancer

Since the early 1990s the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute have conducted and funded countless studies on potential environmental risk factors for breast cancer. While clear answers are still hard to come by in this highly complex field, increasingly sophisticated research questions and methods have yielded intriguing evidence.© Agence Photographique BSIP/Getty Images A suspected cluster of breast cancer cases on Long Island launched what has become a robust body of evidence on environmental risk factors for breast cancer. The hatching on this map indicate areas where the incidence of breast cancer was statistically higher than the New York state average during the time of the suspected cluster (Long Island lies in the lower right-hand corner).Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Reviews Cancer 5, 986–994, © 2005 Most breast cancers develop in one of two parts of the breast. Lobular cancers form in the structures that produce milk in the lactating woman, while ductal cancers form in the structures that carry milk to the nipple.© Sam and Amy Collins According to the Breast Cancer Fund,4 ductal tumors are much more common than lobular tumors, but the latter are more difficult to diagnose. That means by the time they are identified, lobular tumors tend to be larger and more aggressive. Inflammatory breast cancer is a rare but very aggress...
Source: EHP Research - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: News Focus November 2016 Source Type: research