Inflammatory biomarkers and risk of postmenopausal oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer: a case-cohort analysis.

Frances Em Albers; Christopher Tv Swain; S Ghazaleh Dashti; Sabina Rinaldi; Vivian Viallon; Amalia Karahalios; Kristy A Brown; Marc J Gunter; Roger L Milne; Dallas R English; Brigid M Lynch

Journal article

Inflammatory biomarkers and risk of postmenopausal oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer: a case-cohort analysis.

Frances Em Albers, Christopher Tv Swain, S Ghazaleh Dashti, Sabina Rinaldi, Vivian Viallon, Amalia Karahalios, Kristy A Brown, Marc J Gunter, Roger L Milne, Dallas R English, Brigid M Lynch

Br J Cancer | Published : 2026

DOI: 10.1038/s41416-026-03624-6

Open access

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The role of systemic inflammation in postmenopausal breast carcinogenesis remains unclear. Using a case-cohort study within the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study, we estimated the effects of circulating inflammatory biomarkers on the risk of postmenopausal oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer. METHODS: We included 1223 females (347 cases) who were postmenopausal at blood collection. For each biomarker, risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for ER-positive breast cancer were estimated (1) per-doubling in biomarker concentration and (2) for quartiles of concentration with the lowest category as the reference, using weighted Poisson regression with a robu..

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