Serum Phospholipid Fatty Acids in Benign Breast Tumor and Breast Cancer

Eugene Shim; Sei Hyun Ahn; You-Jeong Hwang; Yang Cha Lee-Kim

doi:10.4163/kjn.2009.42.3.213

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Shim, Ahn, Hwang, and Lee-Kim: Serum Phospholipid Fatty Acids in Benign Breast Tumor and Breast Cancer

Original Article

Korean Journal of Nutrition

Korean Journal of Nutrition 2009; 42(3): 213-220.

Published online: 30 April 2009

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4163/kjn.2009.42.3.213

Serum Phospholipid Fatty Acids in Benign Breast Tumor and Breast Cancer

Eugene Shim¹, Sei Hyun Ahn², You-Jeong Hwang³, Yang Cha Lee-Kim³

¹National Hypertension Center, Yonsei University Health System, Seoul 120-752, Korea.

²Department of Surgery, College of Medicine University of Ulsan, Asan Medical Center, Seoul 138-736, Korea.

³Research Institute of Food & Nutritional Sciences, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. (ycleekim@yonsei.ac.kr)

Received 22 January 2009 Revised 16 February 2009 Accepted 15 April 2009

Abstract

Studies on the relationship between blood fatty acids and the risk of breast cancer have not yielded definite conclusions. The role of fatty acids in the development and progression of breast cancer is unclear. We conducted a case-control study to determine serum phospholipid fatty acid composition in benign breast tumor and breast cancer. Subjects consisted of 27 benign breast tumor and 68 breast cancer patients, and 28 matched controls. The levels of fatty acids were measured by gas chromatography. Higher arachidonic and palmitic acids were observed in breast cancer patients as compared with control and benign breast tumor patients. The percentage of total saturated fatty acids in breast cancer was higher than in control and benign breast tumor patients. The level of stearic acid was lower in benign breast tumor and breast cancer patients. Saturation index, the ratio of stearic to oleic acid, was lower in benign breast tumor and breast cancer patients compared to the control. Moreover, stearic acid was negatively and arachidonic acid was positively correlated with the cancer stage. In conclusion, our results support that serum phospholipid compositions of specific fatty acids are associated with the risk of benign breast tumor as well as breast cancer. Further studies are necessary to investigate mechanisms linked to the breast cancer etiology.

Keywords: breast cancer, benign breast tumor, serum phospholipid fatty acids, case-control study

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Percentage of arachidonic acid in serum phospholipid of breast cancer patients based on cancer stage and lymph node status. Values are means ± SEM. Analysis of variance (Student-Newman-Keuls test) was performed to test the difference between means of each tumor stage groups. Student's t-test was performed to test the difference between means of lymph nodal metastasis groups. Bars with different letters or an asterisk are significantly different at p < 0.05.

Fig. 2

Percentage of stearic acid in serum phospholipid of breast cancer patients based on cancer stage. Values are means ± SEM. Analysis of variance (Student-Newman-Keuls test) was performed to test the difference between means of each tumor stage groups. Bars with different letters are significantly different at p < 0.05.

Table 1

Characteristics of study subjects

Values are means ± SEM. Analysis of variance (Student-Newman-Keuls test) was performed to test the difference between means. Values with different superscripts in a row are significantly different at p < 0.05

Table 2

The percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids in serum phospholipids

1) Including 12:0, 14:0, 16:0, 18:0, 20:0, 22:0 and 24:0

Table 3

Percentage of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids in serum phospholipids

1) Including 12:0, 14:0, 16:0, 18:0, 20:0, 22:0 and 24:0

2) Including 14:1, 16:1, 18:1, 20:1, 22:1 and 24:1

Notes

This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (KRF-2002-2004-042-C20116).

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