Periodontal Disease and Breast Cancer Risk: Results from the Nurses' Health Study

While periodontal disease has been linked to increased cancer risk, studies regarding an association with breast cancer are limited.

We examined the relationship between self-reported diagnosis of periodontal bone loss and incidence of breast cancer in a large, prospective cohort study, the Nurses' Health Study (1998-2014). We calculated HRs using Cox proportional hazards modeling, adjusting for risk factors common to both periodontal disease and breast cancer.

During 1,023,647 person-years of follow-up, 5,110 of breast cancer cases were reported. We observed no association between periodontal disease and overall breast cancer risk (HR, 1.02; 95% confidence interval: 0.94-1.10); the association was not modified by smoking status, or other breast cancer risk factors or by breast tumor subtypes.

We did not observe any association between periodontal disease and breast cancer risk.

Given inconsistent findings in the literature, further research with standardized clinical measures of periodontitis is warranted.