Background: Mutually increased risks for thyroid and breast cancer have been reported, but the contribution of etiologic factors versus increased medical surveillance to these associations is unknown.
Methods: Leveraging large-scale US population-based cancer registry data, we used standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) to investigate the reciprocal risks of thyroid and breast cancers among adult females diagnosed with a first primary invasive, non-metastatic breast cancer (N = 652,627) or papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) (N = 92,318) during 2000-2017 who survived ≥1-year.
Results: PTC risk was increased 1.3-fold [N = 1434; SIR = 1.32; 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.25-1.39] after breast cancer compared to the general population. PTC risk declined significantly with time since breast cancer (Poisson regression = Ptrend <0.001) and was evident only for tumors ≤2 cm in size. The SIRs for PTC were higher after hormone-receptor (HR)+ (versus HR-) and stage II or III (versus stage 0-I) breast tumors. Breast cancer risk was increased 1.2-fold (N = 2038; SIR = 1.21; CI = 1.16-1.26) after PTC and was constant over time since PTC but was only increased for stage 0-II and HR + breast cancers.
Conclusion: Although some of the patterns by latency, stage and size are consistent with heightened surveillance contributing to the breast-thyroid association, we cannot exclude a role of shared etiology or treatment effects.
Keywords: Breast cancer; Papillary thyroid cancer; Reciprocal association; Second cancer; Shared etiology; Surveillance.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.