Postmenopausal women who have survived breast cancer have a heightened risk of fractures. Given the growing size of the number of women with breast cancer, strategies are urgently needed to reduce this risk. Researchers from the University of Arizona in Tucson evaluated nearly 5,300 breast cancer survivors. These women were compared with 80,848 women with no cancer history. All subjects were followed for about 5 years. After accounting for potential risk factors, such as age, weight, ethnicity, and geographic region, breast cancer survivors were 31 percent more likely to sustain a fracture than controls were. Having a history of breast cancer raised the risk of fractures at all body sites, except the hip.  The increased risk of vertebral fractures, however, was statistically significant only for breast cancer survivors diagnosed before 55 years of age. After accounting factors including medication use, hormone levels and the presence of other illnesses, the heightened fracture risk seen in breast cancer survivors fell to 15 percent, according to the researchers. However, more research is needed to understand the fracture risk in this special population and to develop more strategies to reduce the number of fractures among breast cancer survivors.
Archives of Internal Medicine,
March 2005