Breast cancer risk assessment for possible tailored screening for Japanese women

Accurate risk assessment for individual women is essential for effective screening of breast cancer (BC) in Japan, because the incidence of BC is still lower than in Western countries. We investigated various new risk factors of BC by means of case control studies and found that serum estrone and adiponectine levels as well as mammographic breast density were significantly correlated to BC risk. Combining these new factors and conventional risk factors of BC may result in a new and useful risk assessment tool, may improve the cost-effectiveness of screening, and may enable us to reduce the BC mortality of Japanese women.