Breast cancer risk and clinical outcome:
Epidemiological studies on vitamin D and thyroid hormone metabolism - Clinical studies on the sentinel node procedure and oncoplastic breast surgery. Epidemiological studies on breast cancer (BC) have so far mainly focused on risk of disease, not outcome. We will study vitamin D, and thyroid hormone metabolism (including selenium and iodine) in relation to clinical outcome, i.e. risk of aggressive tumours, recurrent disease and death. An important development includes the analysis of genetic susceptibility as measured by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Finally, the research programme includes clinical studies on novel surgical techniques; staging according to the sentinel node (SN) technique, and whether the introduction of oncoplastic breast surgery affect oncological safety (radical surgery and risk of recurrent disease), esthetical outcome or quality of life.

Epidemiological studies are based on the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study (17035 women) and SCAN-B (more than 5000 BC-patients). Clinical studies use patient cohorts from Sweden and Denmark. An overall aim is to establish two independent BC cohorts for studies on potential prognostic factors using a test–replication methodology.

The project will give new insight into tumour biology, it will identify high risk groups that may profit from intensive adjuvant treatment, and it will guide future trials on new therapies. Our clinical studies will evaluate safety, esthetical outcome, and quality of life (QoL) of novel surgical techniques.