Abstract
While rare compared to female breast cancer the incidence of male breast cancer (MBC) has increased in the last few decades. Without comprehensive epidemiological studies, the explanation for the increased incidence of MBC can only be speculated. Nevertheless, one of the most worrying global public health issues is the exponential rise in the number of overweight and obese people, especially in the developed world. Although obesity is not considered an established risk factor for MBC, studies have shown increased incidence among obese individuals. With this observation in mind, this article highlights the correlation between the increased incidence of MBC and the current trends in obesity as a growing problem in the 21(st) century, including how this may impact treatment. With MBC becoming more prominent we put forward the notion that, not only is obesity a risk factor for MBC, but that increasing obesity trends are a contributing factor to its increased incidence.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 134 |
| Journal | BMC medicine |
| Volume | 13 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 4 Jun 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Our Male Breast Cancer Programme is supported by Yorkshire Cancer Research, Breast Cancer Campaign, and The Breast Cancer Research Trust.Keywords
- Breast Neoplasms, Male
- Humans
- Incidence
- Male
- Obesity
- Risk Factors
- Journal Article
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Access to Document
- Obesity and male breast cancer provocative parallels
© 2015 Humphries et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.