Endocrinology and epidemiology of breast cancer

Abstract

Observations of relevance to understanding the etiology of breast cancer have been made recently both by endocrinologists and by epidemiologists. Generally speaking, investigators in these 2 disciplines have worked in ignorance of the contributions of the other field. When the observations from the 2 fields are considered together, useful hypotheses, and surprising gaps in our knowledge, are identified. In this paper we attempt to integrate knowledge from the 2 fields, specifically to explore 3 issues: 1. which endocrine organ is most directly involved in etiology, 2. what special characteristic of that organ's function is associated with breast cancer risk, and 3. what are the determinants of that special characteristic.