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The association between poor oral health and risk of breast cancer in the UK Biobank

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Abstract

Purpose

Specific oral health conditions may be risk factors for breast cancer. This study aimed to investigate the associations of oral health conditions with breast cancer risk.

Methods

A total of 234,363 women from the UK Biobank prospective cohort were included in this study. We examined the association of self-reported painful/bleeding gums, loose teeth, mouth ulcers, toothache, and use of dentures with the risk of breast cancer. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for the associations were calculated with adjustment for multiple confounders.

Results

No associations of self-reported painful/bleeding gums (HR = 1.04, 95% CI 0.98–1.10), loose teeth (HR = 0.92, 95% CI 0.82–1.02), mouth ulcers (HR = 0.99, 95% CI 0.93–1.06), toothache (HR = 1.03, 95% CI 0.92–1.14), or denture use (HR = 0.96, 95% CI 0.91–1.02) with breast cancer risk were found. No statistical heterogeneity was observed in analyses stratified by baseline smoking and menopausal status.

Conclusion

We observed no association between self-reported oral health conditions with the risk of breast cancer. Additional research with clinical examinations or oral health biomarkers in diverse populations is warranted.

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Data availability

This research was conducted using the UK Biobank Resource (https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/) under Application Number 52576. Data are available from UK Biobank (https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/) upon request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, 9609 Medical Center Dr, MSC 9768, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA

    Zeni Wu, Fangyu Li, Jian Sang, Gretchen L. Gierach & Emily Vogtmann

Authors
  1. Zeni Wu
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  2. Fangyu Li
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  3. Jian Sang
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  4. Gretchen L. Gierach
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  5. Emily Vogtmann
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Contributions

ZW and FL contributed to conducting the analyses. JS aided in data acquisition. EV contributed to study conception and design and supervised the project. ZW drafted the manuscript. GLG and EV contributed to revising the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emily Vogtmann.

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Competing interest

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

Ethical approval

The UK Biobank has approval from the North West Multi-Centre Research Ethics Committee (MREC) as a Research Tissue Bank (RTB).

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Wu, Z., Li, F., Sang, J. et al. The association between poor oral health and risk of breast cancer in the UK Biobank. Cancer Causes Control 34, 491–494 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01682-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01682-2

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