The Relationship between Serum Concentration of Steroid and Thyroid Hormones with Breast Cancer in Iraqi Women

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common types of cancer among women. Based on international organizations, hundreds of women die from this disease each year around the world. Most common risk factors of BC in women are hormone-related pathway. Some cases of BC show an increase in the level of steroid-receptor protein in the breast tissue, these cases of cancers are called hormone dependent. In the other hand, a clear relationship between high level of thyroid hormone and BC has been reported in some studies. In this work, the relationship between steroid and thyroid hormones with BC was studied in Iraqi women who are diagnosed with BC and before starting any kind of therapy. Serum concentrations of steroid and thyroid hormones was measured using a fully automatic device. Blood samples were collected from 60 women affected with BC and 60 healthy women, those groups are dividing into two sub-groups; premenopausal and postmenopausal. The level of estrogen was increased significantly (p<0.05) in pre-menopausal and post-menopausal patients compared to controls, while, the level of testosterone was increased significantly in pre-menopausal patients and the increase in its level was non-significant (p>0.05) in postmenopausal patients compared with healthy. Furthermore, the increase in progesterone level was significant only in postmenopausal patient women. In addition, the differences in the T3 levels was non-significant between all women with BC and controls, while, the level of T4 was significantly increased in pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women who are affected with BC and the level of TSH was reduced significantly just in post-menopausal patients. It can be concluded that hormonal disorders in women, especially estrogen, can lead to activation of BC cells