Publications by authors named "Vachon C"

Background: Benign breast disease (BBD) increases breast cancer (BC) risk progressively for women diagnosed with nonproliferative change, proliferative disease without atypia (PDWA), and atypical hyperplasia (AH). Leveraging data from 18 704 women in the Mayo BBD Cohort (1967-2013), we evaluated temporal trends in BBD diagnoses and how they have influenced associated BC risk over 4 decades.

Methods: BC risk trends associated with BBD were evaluated using standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) and age-period-cohort modeling across 4 eras-premammogram (1967-1981), precore needle biopsy (CNB) (1982-1992), transition to CNB (1993-2001), and CNB era (2002-2013).

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Introduction: Incorporation of mammographic density to breast cancer risk models could improve risk stratification to tailor screening and prevention strategies according to risk. Robust evaluation of the value of adding mammographic density to models with comprehensive information on questionnaire-based risk factors and polygenic risk score is needed to determine its effectiveness in improving risk stratification of such models.

Methods: We used the Individualized Coherent Absolute Risk Estimator (iCARE) tool for risk model building and validation to incorporate density to a previously validated literature-based model with questionnaire-based risk factors and a 313-variant polygenic risk score (PRS).

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Background: The 313-variant polygenic risk score (PRS) provides a promising tool for clinical breast cancer risk prediction. However, evaluation of the PRS across different European populations which could influence risk estimation has not been performed.

Methods: We explored the distribution of PRS across European populations using genotype data from 94,072 females without breast cancer diagnosis, of European-ancestry from 21 countries participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) and 223,316 females without breast cancer diagnosis from the UK Biobank.

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Purpose: Breast density is a widely established independent breast cancer risk factor. With the increasing utilization of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) in breast cancer screening, there is an opportunity to estimate volumetric breast density (VBD) routinely. However, current available methods extrapolate VBD from two-dimensional (2D) images acquired using DBT and/or depend on the existence of raw DBT data, which is rarely archived by clinical centers because of storage constraints.

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Background: Prolactin, a hormone produced by the pituitary gland, regulates breast development and may contribute to breast cancer etiology. However, most epidemiologic studies of prolactin and breast cancer have been restricted to single, often small, study samples with limited exploration of effect modification.

Methods: The Biomarkers in Breast Cancer Risk Prediction consortium includes 8,279 postmenopausal women sampled from four prospective cohort studies, of whom 3,441 were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer after enrollment.

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Purpose: To determine the relationship between germline pathogenic variants (PV) in cancer predisposition genes and the risk of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

Experimental Design: Germline PV frequencies in breast cancer predisposition genes (ATM, BARD1, BRCA1, BRCA2, CDH1, CHEK2, PALB2, RAD51C, and RAD51D) were compared between DCIS cases and unaffected controls and between DCIS and invasive ductal breast cancer (IDC) cases from a clinical testing cohort (n = 9,887), a population-based cohort (n = 3,876), and the UK Biobank (n = 2,421). The risk of contralateral breast cancer (CBC) for DCIS cases with PV was estimated in the population-based cohort.

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Article Synopsis
  • - MBL (monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis) is linked to an increased risk of developing chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and this study explores the relationship between MBL and mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs), which are structural DNA changes that also elevate CLL risk.
  • - Researchers analyzed data from over 4,600 individuals using flow cytometry to detect MBL and advanced DNA techniques to identify mCAs, revealing that mCAs are highly prevalent in those with MBL and CLL.
  • - The findings show that individuals with high-count MBL have a significantly higher likelihood (881-fold) of harboring CLL-related mCAs compared to those without MBL, which could
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Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) is an asymptomatic premalignant disorder. The current standard of care is not to screen for MGUS, so it is often incidentally diagnosed in the clinic. It is unknown whether the outcomes of screened vs clinically detected MGUS differ.

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  • Pathogenic variants (PVs) in certain genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2 increase breast cancer risk, but it's unclear how risk varies based on the type and location of these variants.
  • This study analyzed breast cancer risks associated with different PV types and locations using data from 12 US studies and clinical cohorts involving over 64,000 women.
  • Results showed that women with specific exon PTVs had higher breast cancer risks, lower rates of ER-negative breast cancer, and were diagnosed at younger ages compared to those with other variants, with these patterns observed across multiple cohorts.
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Purpose: Most breast biopsies are diagnosed as benign breast disease (BBD), with 1.5- to fourfold increased breast cancer (BC) risk. Apart from pathologic diagnoses of atypical hyperplasia, few factors aid in BC risk assessment of these patients.

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Multiple myeloma (MM) is a plasma cell (PC) malignancy characterized by cytogenetic abnormalities, such as t(11;14)(q13;q32), resulting in CCND1 overexpression. The rs9344 G allele within CCND1 is the most significant susceptibility allele for t(11;14). Sequencing data from 2 independent cohorts, CoMMpass (n = 698) and Mayo Clinic (n = 661), confirm the positive association between the G allele and t(11;14).

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  • Elevated mammographic density (MD) is a significant risk factor for breast cancer, and this study investigates how factors like childbirth, age at first birth, and breastfeeding relate to MD in a large group of women across different countries.
  • The research analyzed data from 11,755 women aged 35-85 years, focusing on how factors such as the number of births and the timing of the first birth influence measurements of MD.
  • The findings suggest that having more children decreases MD, while older age at first birth is linked to higher MD, particularly in post-menopausal women, highlighting the complex relationships between reproductive factors and breast density.
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  • Clinical genetic testing helps find cancer risks by identifying gene changes, but some of these changes are confusing because we don't know what they mean (called VUS).
  • Researchers studied a huge number of breast cancer patients and healthy people to understand these confusing gene changes better.
  • They found that their method of analyzing data closely matches what other experts say about which gene changes are harmless or harmful, giving more information about 785 unclear changes.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to enhance breast cancer risk modeling by integrating pathogenic variants (PVs) in specific genes, a polygenic risk score (PRS), and an epidemiologic risk score (ERS) using data from over 23,000 breast cancer cases and controls.
  • - The results showed that postmenopausal women with no PVs but high ERS had a 4.4-fold increase in breast cancer risk, while some CHEK2 PV carriers had a predicted lifetime risk below 20%, indicating potential over-screening in certain groups.
  • - The findings suggest that combining these risk factors can improve risk assessment and possibly lead to more tailored screening and prevention strategies for breast cancer.
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Purpose: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)-phenotype monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL) is a premalignant condition that is roughly 500-fold more common than CLL. It is unknown whether the two-fold increased risk of developing melanoma associated with CLL extends to individuals with MBL.

Methods: Using the Mayo Clinic Biobank, we identified participants who were 40 years or older with no previous hematological malignancies, who resided in the 27 counties around Mayo Clinic, and who had available biospecimens for screening.

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  • The study aimed to understand the link between microcalcifications in benign breast disease (BBD) and the risk of developing ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) or invasive breast cancer (IBC).
  • Researchers analyzed data from nearly 5,000 BBD biopsies and used statistical models to assess the impact of microcalcifications on cancer risk.
  • Findings showed that while microcalcifications were more common in older patients, they did not significantly increase the risk of developing DCIS or IBC compared to those without calcifications.
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  • Scientists looked at the timing of when girls start their periods (called menarche) and how it can affect their health later in life.
  • They studied about 800,000 women and found over a thousand genetic signals that influence when menstruation starts.
  • Some women have a much higher chance of starting their periods too early or too late based on their genetic makeup, suggesting that genes play a big role in this process!
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Background: Early menarche is an established risk factor for breast cancer but its molecular contribution to tumor biology and prognosis remains unclear.

Methods: We profiled transcriptome-wide gene expression in breast tumors (N = 846) and tumor-adjacent normal tissues (N = 666) from women in the Nurses' Health Studies (NHS) to investigate whether early menarche (age < 12) is associated with tumor molecular and prognostic features in women with breast cancer. Multivariable linear regression and pathway analyses using competitive gene set enrichment analysis were conducted in both tumor and adjacent-normal tissue and externally validated in TCGA (N = 116).

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While precision medicine applications of radiomics analysis are promising, differences in image acquisition can cause "batch effects" that reduce reproducibility and affect downstream predictive analyses. Harmonization methods such as ComBat have been developed to correct these effects, but evaluation methods for quantifying batch effects are inconsistent. In this study, we propose the use of the multivariate statistical test PERMANOVA and the Robust Effect Size Index (RESI) to better quantify and characterize batch effects in radiomics data.

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  • Hispanic White (HW) females have a lower overall incidence of breast cancer than non-Hispanic White (NHW) females, but their risk after benign breast disease (BBD) is uncertain.
  • A study in New Mexico analyzed characteristics of BBD and subsequent breast cancer risks in HW and NHW females, finding similar proportions in different types of BBD and elevated breast cancer risks for both groups.
  • The findings highlight that breast cancer risks are comparable for HW and NHW females, suggesting that HW females should receive appropriate clinical management based on their assessed risks.
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Background: Urethral diverticulum (UD) is a poorly defined anomaly consisting of an outpouching of the urethra. Management without surgical resection is not previously reported in dogs.

Hypothesis/objectives: Report the outcome of male dogs presented for urinary incontinence with UD treated with an artificial urethral sphincter (AUS).

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Purpose: Mammographic density phenotypes, adjusted for age and body mass index (BMI), are strong predictors of breast cancer risk. BMI is associated with mammographic density measures, but the role of circulating sex hormone concentrations is less clear. We investigated the relationship between BMI, circulating sex hormone concentrations, and mammographic density phenotypes using Mendelian randomization (MR).

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