Cancer Biology Commons^™

Inter-Individual Variation In Response To Estrogen And Implications For Breast Cancer Risk, Amye L. Black

Doctoral Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related death among women and the most prevalent cancer type in women worldwide. Many risk factors for breast cancer are related to estrogen exposure and all involve prolonged or high levels of estrogen exposure. However, estrogen exposure during early pregnancy reduces breast cancer risk by up to 50%. Estrogen’s paradoxical role in both contributing to and reducing breast cancer risk is still not understood. We hypothesized that a subset of women may be more sensitive to estrogen exposure, and the following experiments were designed to test this hypothesis and determine if …