Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The main purpose of this work is to study the malignant neoplasms of the breast and the incidence of strokes in the United States and to find not only statistically significant predictors for cancer, but also a possible association between breast cancer and stroke. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The statistical methods used to derive the results of this work are χ(2) and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests, in order to check the statistical significance of breast cancer in relation to socio-economic factors of patients. In addition, a multivariate logistic regression analysis was used with the odds ratio (OR) to find statistically significant prognostic factors for breast cancer. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to find the relationship between breast cancer and stroke. RESULTS: According to multiple logistic regression analysis, widowed women have 11 times higher risk developing breast cancer, while white women who are unemployed but have worked previously have two times higher risk for the occurrence of this type of cancer. In addition, a statistically significant relationship was found between the number of cases of breast cancer and stroke. CONCLUSIONS: Our results describe for the first time the importance of deprivation (of work and partner) as a primary prognostic risk factor for cancer. Moreover, we found a link between breast cancer diagnosis and stroke.