Even Moderate Drinking Can Boost Chance of Breast Cancer Recurrence

Dec. 12, 2009— -- Even a few glasses of wine or cocktails a week may increase risk of recurrence for breast cancer survivors, researchers found.

Women who averaged three to four or more drinks per week were 34 percent more likely to have a recurrence than those who rarely, if ever, drank, according to an observational study led by Dr. Marilyn Kwan of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif.

Likewise, mortality risk rose 51 percent for the heavier drinkers among breast cancer survivors, Kwan's group reported here at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

After a breast cancer diagnosis, women should consider cutting back, they recommended.

Patients do often ask how they can personally reduce their risk after successful treatment, commented Dr. Jeffrey Peppercorn of Duke University in Durham, N.C.

"If they want to do everything they can personally do, then lowering alcohol consumption is part of that," said Peppercorn, who was not involved in the study.

In the general population, alcohol has been linked to elevated risk of developing breast cancer but benefits, when taken in moderation, for cardiovascular, some GI, and mental health and even longevity.

The American Cancer Society says that the cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking may outweigh the risk of cancer for men over age 50 and women over 60. However, the ACS and the American Heart Association recommend against starting to drink solely to reduce heart disease risk.

Thus, the new results could be consistent with counseling breast cancer patients that "one glass of wine may be okay but keep it at that," Peppercorn said, though cautioning against overinterpreting the observational data.But because of limited data on how alcohol affects women after breast cancer diagnosis, Kwan's group analyzed findings from the Life After Cancer Epidemiology (LACE) Study, a prospective cohort study of early-stage breast cancer survivors.

The 1,897 participants had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer between 1997 and 2000 and were largely recruited from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Cancer Registry.