ABOUT THE STUDY

One woman drinks 2 glasses of wine a day and has her first baby at 40. Her next-door neighbor drinks the same amount and had her baby at the same age. All their other breast cancer risk factors are the same. Only one is diagnosed with breast cancer. Why?

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|Introduction|Goals|Methods|

INTRO:

The Marin County Department of Health and Human Services is conducting a breast cancer research project to better understand why breast cancer risk factors do not affect all women in the same way.

The occurrence of breast cancer in Marin County is the subject of national and regional scientific interest, but here in Marin, the issue is personal for all of us. It seems that everyone knows at least one woman with breast cancer. The Marin Women’s Study is the first breast cancer study in Marin County to look at individual risk factors linked to an analysis of biospecimens (saliva samples). Saliva will let us look at what is happening inside the body. We hope this new study will be one of the pieces to the puzzle we’ve been missing, the piece that will help us answer the question, “What’s happening in Marin?"

This study is a community effort in collaboration with the Marin Cancer Institute, University of California San Francisco, Buck Institute for Age Research, Kaiser Permanente San Rafael Medical Center, the Novato Community Hospital Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Zero Breast Cancer, the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and many local community groups.

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GOALS:

We hope to discover–

• How risk factors vary by socioeconomic status and are associated with breast cancer risk.
• How women in Marin County are using complementary and alternative medicines (CAMS) for menopausal symptoms and how their use might relate to breast cancer risk.
• How the socioeconomic status of the communities we live in affects breast cancer risk.
• How tumor characteristics differ in women with different breast cancer risk factors.
• How alcohol and estrogen affect breast cancer risk.
• And much more…

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METHODS:

Between late 2006 and early 2010, women were invited to fill out a questionnaire when they had a screening or a diagnostic mammogram. Starting in March 2010 only women having diagnostic mammograms, are asked to join this study.Women are also asked to donate a saliva sample. Analysis of these samples will help us better understand why breast cancer risk factors do not affect all women in the same way.

See the data collection process.

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