Host Factors in Cancer of the Breast and Uterine Cervix and Corpus2

Abstract

Among 910 women with cancer of the breast or reproductive system and 291 controls, a significant excess of Negro women and a deficit of Jewish women had cervical cancer. Ancestry was unrelated to 5-year survival among women with treated breast, cervical, or endometrial cancer. Negro women developed breast cancer 5 years earlier than white women, but age was unrelated to outcome of treated breast or cervical cancer. Age at natural menopause, alcohol consumption, and (with 667 controls) ABO blood type and age at menarche showed no association with cancer. Women with endometrial cancer, much heavier and stockier than age-matched normal women or those with breast or cervical cancer, had somatotypes with increased “endomorphy” (fat) rather than “mesomorphy” (bone and muscle). Those whose uterine corpus cancer developed before age 50 years were less obese and less fertile than those with later onset. White women with corpus cancer included a high percentage (19%) of diabetics, though the diabetics were no more obese than the non-diabetics, and were similar in ancestry. Women with cervical cancer and those responding poorly to therapy of cervical or breast cancer were low in mesomorphy, whereas Negro women with fibromyomas were strikingly mesomorphic. White women with cancer of the breast, cervix, or ovary were more feminine morphologically than normal white women. When compared with breast- or corpus-cancer patients, cervical-cancer patients were more likely to be married and at a younger age, to have more pregnancies and deliveries, to be less often nulliparous, and to develop cancer when married, even though nulliparous