News Release

August news briefs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mayo Clinic

ROCHESTER, MINN. -- August 2001 The following stories detail news from Mayo Clinic. They are intended for use as individual stories or as part of a larger story on a particular medical topic.

Mayo Clinic Study Finds Family History of Breast Cancer, Daily Alcohol Consumption May Increase Risk of Breast Cancer

Daily alcohol consumption by women whose mothers, sisters or daughters have breast cancer further increases their risk for getting the cancer, according to a Mayo Clinic study in the current issue of the journal, Cancer.

The study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute, examined the interaction of alcohol and family history of breast cancer within 426 multigenerational breast cancer families. The authors evaluated whether alcohol use was a stronger risk factor for breast cancer among sisters, daughters, nieces and granddaughters of women with the disease than among women who married into these families.

Among first-degree relatives of the women who had breast cancer, daily drinkers had an increased risk of breast cancer compared with never-drinkers. First-degree relatives include mothers, siblings and children. This increased risk was less evident among second-degree relatives who reported daily alcohol intake and was not evident in relatives by marriage who reported daily use of alcohol.

"Daily alcohol consumption over a woman’s lifetime may be a greater risk factor for breast cancer in women who have a first degree relative with breast cancer," says Celine Vachon, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic investigator and the principal author of the study. "However, these data are quite preliminary, and we need longer follow-up time to better answer this question."

Contact: Mary Lawson @ 507-266-0810 (days)

Mayo Clinic Study: Most Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease Don’t Require Steroid Therapy; Patients Who Need Steroids Have Poor Prognosis

A Mayo Clinic study on the use of corticosteroids to treat ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease shows most patients don’t require steroid therapy and that those who do have a poor prognosis.

Published in the August issue of Gastroenterology, the researchers looked at patient records through the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a linked medical diagnostic index that uses the unique health care delivery system of Olmsted County (Minn.) and allows for true population-based studies of disease.

Researchers found that less than 50 percent of patients with inflammatory bowel disease ever require treatment with corticosteroids. Of those who do require corticosteroid therapy, 84 percent respond and 16 percent do not. (At one year, 32 percent of patients with Crohn’s disease and 48 percent with ulcerative colitis were corticosteroid-free without surgery.)

Among those who initially respond to corticosteroids, however, dependence and operation occur frequently, indicating that the need for treatment with corticosteroids is a marker of poor prognosis.

The researchers wrote that studies are needed to determine whether early immunosuppressive or biotechnology therapy might help inflammatory bowel disease patients who require treatment with corticosteroids avoid dependency and surgery.

"Our study provides the first data ever published on the natural history of ulcerative colitis following steroid therapy, and confirms the findings of one previous study from Denmark in patients with Crohn’s disease," says William Sandborn, M.D., of Mayo Clinic, who was an author of the study. "Studies which evaluate alternative therapies to corticosteroids, and which evaluate the co-administration of other therapies with corticosteroids to improve the prognosis of these patients, are urgently needed."

Contact: Lee Aase at 507-266-2442 (days)

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