Young Women Smokers at Higher Risk of Developing Common Type of Breast Cancer: Study

Young women who smoke are at higher risk of developing a common type of breast cancer, a latest study shows.

Researchers found that women aged between 20 and 44 who smoked nearly a whole cigarette pack each day for 10 years were 60 percent more likely to develop estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.

"I think that there is growing evidence that breast cancer is another health hazard associated with smoking," study lead author, Dr Christopher Li of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, told Reuters Health.

For the study, the researchers examined data of young women from Seattle diagnosed with breast cancer between 2004 and 2010. They found that 778 women were diagnosed with the more common estrogen receptor-positive type and 182 were diagnosed with less common but more aggressive triple-negative type. In the control group, the researchers studied 938 women without cancer.

The researchers found that women who had ever smoked had 30 percent more chances of developing  any type of breast cancer compared to those who never smoked. Upon further observation, the authors found no link between smoking and triple-negative breast cancer, reports Medical News Today.

But women who were recent or current smokers and smoked for at least 15 years had 50 percent more chances to get estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer compared to those who smoked for fewer years.

"The current study adds to recent evidence indicating that smoking is modestly associated with breast cancer risk in young women. Expanding on earlier work, our findings suggest that this association is limited to an increase in the risk of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer and that smoking does not have an impact on the risk of triple-negative breast cancer," the authors wrote in the study.