UB Researchers To Study Early Environmental Exposure To Potential Carcinogens And Link To Breast Cancer

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Breast tissue grows particularly fast during infancy, early childhood and menarche. Researchers think the breast may be more sensitive to environmental insults at these times, and that exposures early in life could increase the risk of breast cancer in adulthood.

At the University at Buffalo, Jo Freudenheim, Ph.D., professor of social and preventive medicine, is leading a project that will map the early-childhood residences of a group of women, the proximity of their homes to sites that may have been environmentally hazardous, and compare this data to the women with and without breast cancer in the study group to see if there is an association.

The study will be funded by a three-year, $457,532 grant from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program.

"This study is an exciting opportunity to increase our understanding of the role of environmental exposures during infancy and menarche (start of menstruation) to health and disease later in life," said Freudenheim. "There are just a few studies examining these time periods, and none have focused on these environmental exposures."

"With this grant, we will examine environmental exposures and gene-environment interactions at the time of birth and at menarche and subsequent risk of breast cancer. There is a lot of concern in the community that these exposures are important. This study will give us a chance to examine that question systematically."

The new study will piggyback on Freudenheim's ongoing case-control study of breast cancer in Erie and Niagara counties involving about 1,000 women with recently diagnosed breast cancer and 2,000 healthy women. The researchers are gathering data on all the places the participants have lived, as well as information on other breast-cancer risk factors. The new grant will allow the researchers to enter residential data into a computer map, along with data on the location of steel mills, chemical factories, gasoline stations, toxic-waste sites and other industrial sites from 1918-80. They then will calculate the distance between these sites and the women's homes at the time of birth and menarche, and compare this information for the participants with and without cancer.

UB researchers also will study whether genetic differences in the body's ability to detoxify potential carcinogens affect the risks related to location of their homes. Women with a fast-acting gene can break down and get rid of toxic substances quicker than women with the slow-acting gene. Freudenheim and colleagues will look for these commonly occurring genetic differences to see if one group is more affected by environmental exposure than others.