Abstract
BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy affecting women, with higher mortality and morbidity. The early identification and diagnosis are the cornerstone of successful treatment and reduction of morbidity and mortality. Mammography is the gold standard screening tool. This work is designed to investigate the potential association between breast cancer and environmental factors related to lifestyle. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done by collecting data from medical records of patients diagnosed with early diagnosed and well-established diabetes mellitus attending our university hospital; 300 women were screened by mammography for breast cancer. Women with positive results were assigned as the study group (n=39), while women with negative results were assigned as the control group (n=261). All were evaluated by the standard clinical approaches, and a pre-prepared questionnaire was used to collect data about social, environmental, and lifestyle factors. The collected data were submitted to statistical analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Science for Windows, version 20 (IBM, Chicago, USA). RESULTS: There was significant increase (P<0.001) of body mass index, hormone replacement therapy, age at first and last deliveries age at last baby and wearing tight bra; while there was significant decrease (P<0.001) of menarche, number of living children, mean age of weaning, and breast feeding in the study than the control group. In addition, there was significant increase (P<0.001) of long duration or night shift work, exposure to dangers at work, passive smoking, and use of kohl, drugs, crowding index, old painting, non-cemented ground, TV at bed rooms, pesticide exposure in the study than the control group. With multiple regression analysis, the early menarche, use of hormone replacement therapy, older age at first or last delivery, number of living children, mean age at weaning, breast feeding, tight bra, exposure to dangers at work, passive smoking, use of cosmetics (kohl), persons at home and crowding index remains the significant (P<0.001) associates with detected breast cancer. CONCLUSION: This study used mammography as the gold-standard detection tool to identify neoplasia cases and analyze their association with environmental and occupational risk factors.