Adherence to a western dietary pattern and risk of invasive ductal and lobular breast carcinomas: a case-control study

Little is known about the role of diet in the risk of invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) of the breast, the most common histological subtypes of breast cancer (BC). This is because, the majority of studies on the association of diet and the risk of BC are focused on single food items, and studies considering the overall diet in terms of dietary patterns are limited. Also, the potential heterogeneity in the impact of Western diet (WD) on histological subtypes of BC is not established. This, the age-frequency-matched case-control study included 1009 incident BC cases and 1009 healthy controls. The required data was obtained from the patients' medical files and interviews using a previously validated researcher-designed questionnaire for collecting data on socio-economic and anthropometric statuses and a valid food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to measure the participants' dietary intake. We used multinomial logistic regression, and odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. A positive and significant association was observed between higher adherence to a WD and risk of IDC (OR comparing highest with the lowest tertile: 2.45, 95% CI 1.88, 3.17; p-trend < 0.001), whereas no significant association was observed between adherence to the WD and the risk of ILC (OR comparing highest with the lowest tertile: 1.63, 95% CI 0.63, 3.25) (p for heterogeneity = 0.03). The results of an analysis stratified by menopausal status suggested a similar pattern. We provided evidence that adherence to a WD raises the risk of IDC, but not ILC, suggesting different etiological mechanisms for IDC and ILC.

Automated summary

Little is known about the role of diet in the risk of invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) of the breast, but this study found that adhering to a Western diet (WD) significantly raises the risk of IDC, while having no significant impact on the risk of ILC. This suggests different etiological mechanisms for IDC and ILC.