Correlation of body mass index and menopausal status with the intratumoral estrogen system in invasive breast cancer

Objective: Obesity is associated with an increased breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women. One reason for this association is the elevated non-glandular aromatase activity resulting in higher estradiol serum levels. We tested the hypothesis that obesity and menopausal status might also be associated with changes in the intratumoral estrogen system of breast cancer tissue. Design: We studied expression of different genes in correlation to menopausal status, BMI and histopathological parameters. Breast cancer tissue and fasting serum were collected from 26 female patients. After microdissection of the frozen s…