Innate left handedness and risk of breast cancer: case-cohort study

doi:10.1136/bmj.38572.440359.AE

BMJ 2005;331:882-883 (15 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.38572.440359.AE (published 26 September 2005)

Paper

Innate left handedness and risk of breast cancer: case-cohort study

Made K Ramadhani, epidemiologist¹, Sjoerd G Elias, epidemiologist¹, Paulus A H van Noord, assistant professor of cancer epidemiology¹, Diederick E Grobbee, professor of clinical epidemiology¹, Petra H M Peeters, associate professor of cancer epidemiology¹, Cuno S P M Uiterwaal, assistant professor of clinical epidemiology¹

¹ Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, PO Box 85500, 3508 GA, Utrecht, Netherlands

Correspondence to: C S P M Uiterwaal c.s.p.m.uiterwaal@umcutrecht.nl

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Among the proposed origins of breast cancer are intrauterineinfluences, such as exposure to sex hormones.¹ Such exposuremay also influence cerebral lateralisation, with hand preferencebeing one of its manifestations. We know only of case-controlstudies on a putative common origin of left handedness and breastcancer, some of which show an association.² We assessed theassociation between handedness and incidence of breast cancerin a population based prospective cohort of healthy, middleaged women followed up for 16 years.

Participants, methods, and results

In a breast cancer screening study in Utrecht, the Netherlands,12 178 women born between 1932 and 1941 and recruited between1982 and 1985 (participation rate 40%) had baseline questionnairedata recorded about reproductive history, demography, lifestyle,and innate hand preference and had anthropometric measures taken.Linkage with the regional cancer registry provided data on allnew cases of invasive breast cancer that occurred until 1 January2000. Follow-up . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

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More left handed relatives too?: Arunachalam, Kumar, et al.
bmj.com, 14 Oct 2005 [Full text]
Are epidemiologists missing the point?: Sabapathy P Balasubramanian
bmj.com, 15 Oct 2005 [Full text]
Re: Are epidemiologists missing the point?: Cuno S Uiterwaal, et al.
bmj.com, 16 Oct 2005 [Full text]
Innate left handedness and risk of breast cancer: a spurious correlation: Adrian J Bloor
bmj.com, 17 Oct 2005 [Full text]
Re: Innate left handedness and risk of breast cancer: a spurious correlation: Cuno S Uiterwaal, et al.
bmj.com, 18 Oct 2005 [Full text]
Screening for left-handed premenopausal women needed?: Bettina Lieske
bmj.com, 18 Oct 2005 [Full text]
Breast malhandling: A Sadnicka
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Re: Screening for left-handed premenopausal women needed?: Cuno S Uiterwaal, et al.
bmj.com, 20 Oct 2005 [Full text]
On Human Laterality And Breast Cancer: Mr Ali I Malik, et al.
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Re: Breast malhandling: Cuno S. Uiterwaal, et al.
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