Despite advances in management of breast cancer, etiology is still elusive. Diet, obesity and other life style factors have been implicated in its etiology. We assessed the role of obesity and HDL-C levels in patients with rural background in etiology of breast cancer. To know the relation between obesity and incidence of breast cancer in local population. Also to know serum HDL-C level in breast cancer and its correlation with breast cancer. A nested pilot study of 50 breast cancer patients was done and matched with 50 healthy women as controls. Obesity was measured by weight, height, BMI (Body Mass Index), waist circumference (WC), Hip Circumference (HC), WC/HC ratio, and Serum High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C) was measured in patients and in controls. There was no significant difference in distribution of weight (p = 0.298), height (p = 0.653), BMI (p = 0.459) and WHR (p = 0.052) among cases and controls. HDL-C level was observed to be significantly lower in cases than control group (p = 0.017).Breast cancer patients of pre menopausal age had significantly low Weight (p = 0.037) and BMI (p = 0.011) than post menopausal patients. In our study population only low HDL-C level had significant correlation with breast cancer and none of the other anthropometric measurements were associated with breast cancer. However, large population based case control and cohort studies are needed to identify low serum HDL-C as an independent predictor of increased risk of breast cancer.
Keywords: Body mass index; Breast cancer; High density lipoprotein cholesterol; Obesity; Waist hip ratio.