Trends in breast cancer incidence among young women aged 20 to 49 years in the United States.

Authors

null

Shuai Xu

Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO

Shuai Xu , Yunan Han , Fei Wan , Adetunji T. Toriola

Organizations

Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO

Research Funding

U.S. National Institutes of Health
U.S. National Institutes of Health

Background: Breast cancer in young women is diagnosed at more advanced stages and has a less favorable prognosis. We investigated trends in breast cancer incidence by race/ethnicity, hormone receptor status, and tumor stage in women aged 20-49 years over the past 25 years, as well as the impact of period and cohort effects on these trends. Methods: We used data from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) 13 registries for 1993-2002 and SEER 18 registries for 2003-2017. We calculated age-standardized incidence rates and annual percent change (APC), and stratified by race/ethnicity, hormone receptor status (estrogen receptor [ER] and progesterone receptor [PR]), and tumor stage (I-IV) for 222,424 women aged 20-49 years with a primary invasive breast cancer. We performed age-period-cohort analysis (presented as incidence rate ratios [IRR]) to investigate the effects of age, period, and cohort on incidence trends using the 1948 cohort and 1993-1997 period as the reference groups, respectively. Results: Between 2010-2017, invasive breast cancer incidence increased (APC = 0.67%, 95%CI: 0.32 to 1.03) among women aged 20-49 years, after being stable from 1993-2010. There were differences by race over the 25-year period (1993-2017). We observed significant increases in incidence among non-Hispanic White (NHW) (APC = 0.25%, 95%CI: 0.16 to 0.34), non-Hispanic Asia/Pacific Islander (NHAPI) (APC = 0.58%, 95%CI: 0.34 to 0.82), and Hispanic women (APC = 0.59%, 95%CI: 0.34 to 0.83), but not among non-Hispanic black (NHB) women (APC = 0.14%, 95%CI: -0.06 to 0.34). Incidence increased for ER+ tumors but decreased for ER- tumors: ER+/PR+ (APC = 2.39%, 95%CI: 2.20 to 2.58), ER+/PR- (APC = 1.46%, 95%CI: 1.05 to 1.87), ER-/PR+ (APC = -6.33%, 95%CI: -7.31 to -5.33), and ER-/PR- (APC = -0.70%, 95%CI: -1.09 to -0.32). The decrease in ER-/PR- tumors appeared largely driven by decreases among HNW women. Incidence for stages I (APC = 0.31, 95%CI: 0.07 to 0.55), II (APC = 0.99, 95%CI: 0.82 to 1.16), and IV (APC = 2.88, 95%CI: 2.37 to 3.39) tumors increased while that for stage III tumors decreased (APC = 0.81%, 95%CI: -1.04 to -0.59). Both the cohort and period effects impacted incidence, with the cohort effect almost 10 times larger than the period effect. Age-specific relative risk by birth cohort initially decreased between 1948 and 1958 but steadily increased from 1958 to 1993. Breast cancer incidence was higher among women born in the 1988 (IRR = 1.17, 95%CI: 1.07 to 1.28) and 1993 (IRR = 1.22, 95%CI: 0.99 to 1.51) cohorts than for those born in 1948 cohort. Conclusions: Breast cancer incidence is increasing among young women, mainly driven by increases in ER+ tumors. Prevention efforts need to focus on how we can address factors driving the increase in ER+ tumors and also learn from what has worked for decreasing ER- tumors.

Disclaimer

This material on this page is ©2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology, all rights reserved. Licensing available upon request. For more information, please contact licensing@asco.org

Abstract Details

Meeting

2021 ASCO Annual Meeting

Session Type

Poster Session

Session Title

Prevention, Risk Reduction, and Hereditary Cancer

Track

Prevention, Risk Reduction, and Genetics

Sub Track

Etiology/Epidemiology

Citation

J Clin Oncol 39, 2021 (suppl 15; abstr 10573)

DOI

10.1200/JCO.2021.39.15_suppl.10573

Abstract #

10573

Poster Bd #

Online Only

Abstract Disclosures