Anthropometry, bone mineral density and risk of breast cancer in premenopausal and postmenopausal Saudi women

Introduction: Anthropometry and bone mineral density are linked to hor-monal imbalance, which plays a possible role in breast carcinogenesis. The current study was designed to explore the relationship between se-lected anthropometric and bone mineral density parameters and the risk of breast cancer in premenopausal and postmenopausal Saudi women.Material and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among pre-menopausal (n = 308) and postmenopausal (n = 148) women at two Medical Cities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from May 2015 to June 2016. Selected anthro-pometric measurements were obtained from 456 women; 213 of them had breast cancer. Bone mineral density was also measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry.Results: Greater waist circumference was significantly correlated with a higher breast cancer risk in premenopausal women (OR = 1.02, p = 0.03) but not in postmenopausal women. Greater triceps skinfold thickness had been found to be significantly correlated with a higher risk of breast cancer in premenopausal (OR = 1.06, p = 0.001) and postmenopausal (OR = 1.06, p = 0.001) women. However, bone mineral density was not significantly as-sociated with breast cancer risk in either group of participants.Conclusions: Breast cancer risk was significantly associated with waist cir-cumference and triceps skinfold thickness in premenopausal women and with only triceps skinfold thickness in postmenopausal women.