Pregnancy postponement and childlessness leads to chronic hypervascularity of the breasts and cancer risk.

Epidemiologists have established that women with small families, and particularly nulliparae, are prone to develop breast cancer later in life. We report that physiological mammary hypervascularity may be an intermediate reason against the background that breast-core vascularity is normal in pregnancy but pathological in the vascularisation of cancer. We examined breast 'core' vascularity in nulliparae during their potential reproductive life and in parous women after their last birth but before their menopause.

The luteal heat cycle of the breast in disease.

Wearing a special thermometric brassiere, selected women self-measured their breast surface temperature. These measurements were made during one hour each evening at home for one menstrual cycle under standard conditions of overclothing and room temperature. To stage their cycle they also collected daily samples of saliva in their freezer for immuno-assay of progesterone concentration in the laboratory.

A non-invasive test for the pre-cancerous breast.

This paper describes a non-invasive, self-measured procedure by which the precancerous breast can be distinguished from the normal breast. The method involves wearing a specially designed thermometric brassiere for 90 min each evening at home through one menstrual cycle. Profiles of progesterone through the cycle, obtained from daily saliva sampling, and determination of the steroid content by radioimmunoassay, are made to allow the status and calendar date timing of the luteal phase to be established.

The luteal heat cycle of the breast in health.

Wearing a special thermometric brassiere, twenty-five normal women self-measured their breast surface temperature. The subjects averaged 39 years of age and all were parous. Observations were made for one hour each evening for one menstrual cycle under semi-standardized domestic conditions.