الفهرس 
BREAST CANCEROnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
B
reast cancer is the most common cancer and the second most known deadly disease for women around the world. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease and its pathogenesis involves various genetic, nutritional, hormonal and environmental factors.
Vitamin D plays a role in normal breast tissue development. This effect is believed to be largely mediated through intervention of vitamin D with VDR. Recently, vitamin D status and VDR gene polymorphisms have emerged as risk factors for breast cancer development; however, controversial findings have been observed.
On the light of the previous data, the present study was conducted to investigate the association of vitamin D status and VDR ApaI gene polymorphism with the risk of breast cancer.
The study included 40 pre-menopausal female patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer and who did not start any treatment modality. In addition, 20 apparently healthy age matched females served as healthy controls. Assay of serum 25 (OH) vitamin D was done using ELISA technique, while detection of VDR ApaI gene polymorphism was done by PCR-RFLP technique.
The present study revealed the presence of a highly significant difference between breast cancer patients and controls as regards positive family history of breast cancer and the intake of OCPs. Within the breast cancer group, half of the patients had a late stage disease (stages III and IV) at the time of initial diagnosis. The majority of patients (85%) had infiltrating carcinoma and (60%) had a grade II tumor.
The present study revealed a highly significant decrease in vitamin D levels among breast cancer patients as compared to controls. However, no significant difference was found between breast cancer patients and control group as regards VDR ApaI gene polymorphism genotypes and allele frequencies.
In the present study, neither the vitamin D levels nor the VDR ApaI gene polymorphism genotypes showed any relation with tumor staging, histological types and grade of differentiation as well as the status of ER, PR and HER2.
In conclusion, the current study has introduced an additional evidence for the significant association between low serum levels of 25(OH) vitamin D and the presence of breast cancer. However, vitamin D levels did not show any association with the tumor staging, histological types, and grades of differentiation as well as the hormonal receptor status. On the other hand, the study failed to prove the presence of an association between VDR ApaI polymorphism and breast cancer. Moreover, the ApaI genotype frequencies did not vary in relation to the different histopathological characteristics of the tumor.