BibTex format
@article{Flanagan:2017,
author = {Flanagan, JM},
journal = {Internal Medicine Review},
title = {Epigenome-Wide Association Studies (EWAS) for breast cancer risk},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/44417},
year = {2017}
}
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Citation
RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)
TY - JOUR
AB - Current breast cancer screening methods are effective, however, they could be improved by targeting those at highest risk and the idea of developing a risk stratified screening strategy is gaining support. Multiple lifestyle and environmental factors influence breast cancer aetiology, including age, hormonal and reproductive factors, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol intake, smoking, benign breast disease, high mammographic-density and family history. The addition of the combined “polygenic risk scores” integrating genetic risk markers is likely to make a modest improvement to breast cancer risk models, however, there is considerable room for improvement by identifying further independent risk factors. In this review we consider the evidence for epigenetic risk markers for breast cancer. There have been five EWAS for breast cancer risk using blood DNA from prospective cohorts published thus far, and the only consistent finding is a loss of methylation observed in breast cancer cases compared with controls, with no individual CpG sites validating across studies. In contrast, a more successful approach has been the identification of EWAS signatures of cancer risk factors such as smoking, body mass index, age and alcohol use with numerous validated CpG sites. These signatures may be used as a molecular test to quantify cancer risk associated with these factors. In summary, it is clear from the larger exposure related studies that similar sized large collaborative studies may be needed to robustly identify DNA methylation signatures of breast cancer risk.
AU - Flanagan,JM
PY - 2017///
SN - 2470-3524
TI - Epigenome-Wide Association Studies (EWAS) for breast cancer risk
T2 - Internal Medicine Review
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/44417
ER -