Inflammatory F₂-isoprostane, prostaglandin F_2α, pentraxin 3 levels and breast cancer risk: The Swedish Mammography Cohort

Introduction: Breast cancer is a common cancer among women. Identifying cellular participation of F₂-isoprostane, prostaglandin F_2α (PGF_2α) and pentraxin 3 (PTX3) in cancer we evaluated whether their prediagnostic systemic levels that originate from different inflammatory pathways were associated with breast cancer risk.

Methods: Seventy-eight breast cancer cases diagnosed after blood collection and 797 controls from the Swedish Mammography Cohort were analysed for urinary F₂-isoprostane, PGF_2α and plasma PTX3 levels.

Results: None of the biomarkers investigated were significantly associated with breast cancer risk. However, there was the suggestion of an inverse association with PTX3 with multivariable adjusted ORs (95% CI) of 0.56 (95% CI=0.29-1.06) and 0.67 (95% CI=0.35-1.28) for the second and third tertiles, respectively (p_trend=0.20). No associations were observed between F₂-isoprostane (OR=0.87; 95% CI=0.48-1.57; p_trend=0.67) and PGF_2α metabolite (OR=1.03; 95% CI=0.56-1.88; p_trend=0.91) comparing the top to bottom tertiles.

Conclusions: The systemic levels of F₂-isoprostane, PGF_2α and PTX3 witnessed in women who later developed breast cancer may not provide prognostic information regarding tumor development in spite of their known involvement in situ cellular context. These observations may indicate that other mechanisms exist in controlling cellular formation of F₂-isoprostane, PGF_2α and PTX3 and their systemic availability in breast cancer patients.