Population-based case-control study of breast cancer in Albania

In Albania, breast cancer is an important cause of death among women, with increasing incidence from 65 cases in 1970, to 400 cases in 2007. This is the first study concerning breast cancer risk factors in Albania. We used a population-based case-control study of 948 women with breast cancer compared with 1019 controls recruited from other hospitals through random selection. Early age at menarche was found to be a significantly strong risk factor during the pre- and postmenopausal groups with OR 10.04 and 12.1, respectively. In addition, nulliparity is associated with higher risk while abortion did not indicate any influence in the multivariate model. The findings from this study have shown that reproductive and menstrual variables are significant predictors of breast cancer risk in Albanian women, as seen in studies of other western countries.