Jeon-Hor Chen1, 2, Christine McLaren3, Wen-Pin Chen3, Siwa Chan4, Dah-Cherng Yeh5, Orhan Nalcioglu6, Min-Ying Lydia Su1
1Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, Department of Radiological Science, University of California , Irvine, CA, United States; 2Department of Radiology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; 3Department of Epidemiology, University of California , Irvine, CA, United States; 4Department of Radiology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; 5Department of Surgery, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; 6Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, Department of Radiological Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, United States
The correlation between levels of endogenous estrogen and progesterone and measures of fibroglandular tissue volume and percent breast density analyzed on 3D MRI was studied. Twenty-four healthy premenopausal Asian women were recruited. Each woman received 4 weekly breast MRIs during their MC. Blood sample was also collected at the same day. It was found that there was significant correlation of FV and PD with endogenous estradiol, and FV with progesterone in the third week after the starting of menstruation. Our study did not find strong evidence of a weekly lag effect of endogenous hormone on the measured FV and PD. The results from this study raised the possibility that the association between sex hormone and breast cancer may be mediated, in part, by increasing breast density.