Seon-yong Bhang, Hyo-jin Lee, Jee-hyun Kang, Byung-yeon Yu

Department of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, Konyang University, Daejeon, Korea


Background: Metabolic syndrome is associated with increased risk of breast cancer, but little is known about the association between metabolic syndrome and mammographic density as an independent predictor of breast cancer. In this study, we investigated the association between metabolic syndrome or its components and three-dimensional breast density using digital mammography.
Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional data of 166 women, aged 20 or over (61 premenopausal and 105 postmenopausal women) in a district hospital. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to the modified National Cholesterol Education Program’s Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III) guideline. We measured volume percentage of dense breast tissue using digital mammography. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the association between mammographic density and metabolic syndrome, as well as its components.
Results: The Mean mammographic density was lower in the group with metabolic syndrome compared with the group without it. After adjusting for age and menopausal status, multiple regression analysis showed waist circumference (β＝-3.112, S.E.＝0.927, P＝0.001) and low HDL-cholesterol (β＝-2.967, S.E.＝1.109, P＝0.008) were independent variables for the percentage of mammographic density, although metabolic syndrome itself was not. After additional adjustment for body mass index, only low HDL-cholesterol was associated with percentage of mammographic density (β＝-2.953, S.E.＝0.882, P＝0.001).
Conclusions: In this study, only low HDL cholesterol was associated with three-dimensional mammographic density independently after adjusting for age, menopausal status and body mass index. These findings need to be confirmed in further larger prospective studies.
Korean J Health Promot 2015;15(4):168-174

Keywords: Metabolic syndrome, Mammographic density, High density lipoprotein cholesterol, Breast cancer