Hypothyroidism affect progression and worse outcomes of breast cancer but not ovarian cancer

ABSTRACT

Some studies suggest that thyroid hormones and disorders can influence breast (BC) and ovarian (OC) cancers risks. However, studies regarding their effect on these tumors progression are limited. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), T4, free T4 (FT4), T3, and free T3 (FT3) were detected in patients with BC, OC, benign breast and ovary diseases, and healthy controls using highly sensitive chemiluminescence assay. In contrast to OC, hypothyroidism prevalence was associated with BC late stage (11/24 vs. 2/46), high grade (11/23 vs. 4/47), lymph node invasion (11/42 vs. 0/28), positive distant metastasis (11/25 vs. 1/45), and large tumor size (14/25 vs. 1/45) compared to tumor early stages, low grades, negative lymph node, and distant metastasis and small size, respectively. Patients with late stage, high grade, large tumor size, positive lymph nodes, or positive distant metastasis were significantly (P < 0.05) associated with elevated levels of TSH and decreased levels of T4, FT4, T3, and FT3. There were both significant positive correlation of serum TSH and significant inverse correlation of T4, FT4, T3, and FT3 with these tumor worse outcomes. In conclusion, our results identify hypothyroidism as potentially important prognostic factor in BC not in OC that is associated with poor outcomes of BC patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Breast cancer
• ovarian cancer
• hypothyroidism
• progression
• worse outcomes

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank the staffs of Surgical Oncology Department, Mansoura Oncology Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt for their kind assistances in the sample collection.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.