Alcoholic beverage consumption increases risk of developing breast cancer, which is a fact. Now a study in Cancer Epidemiologgy, Biomarkers & Prevention suggests that drinking some alcohol daily after diagnosis of breast cancer did not seem to increase risk of death from the disease, but may increase recurrence risk, particularly in postmenopausal women.
M.L. Kwan of Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California and colleagues followed 9,329 breast cancer patients in the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project to examine how post-diagnosis alcoholic beverage consumption would affect recurrence and mortality in the patients. During a mean 10.3 year follow-up, 1,646 recurrences and 1,543 deaths were recorded.
Patients in the study were women in three prospective US cohorts who were diagnosed with AJCC Stage I-III breast tumors between 1990 and 2006. Alcoholic beverage intake was estimated at baseline (on average 2,1 years after diagnosis) using a food frequency questionnaire. A total of 5,422 women with breast cancer were drinkers defined as having greater than 0.36 g/day of alcohol or greater than 0.25 drinks/week with a median of 5.3 g of alcohol per day.
Compared with those who did not drink alcoholic beverage, breast cancer patients who regularly drank 6.0 g per day was not correlated with risk of recurrence. But those who drank 6 to 12 g/day, 12 to 24 g per day, or greater than 24 g per day were 3%, 12% or 34% more likely to have recurrence, respectively, compared to those who did not drink any.
The risk of recurrence was increased 19% by alcoholic beverage consumption in postmenopausal women with breast cancer.
However, alcoholic beverage consumption was not associated with mortality.
