Association between change of dietary pattern during 1 year follow-up and risk for recurrence of cancer among breast cancer survivors

Abstract

Diet has been suggested to play an important role in the occurrence of breast cancer, but the association between the risk for recurrence of cancer and changes of dietary pattern after diagnosed with breast cancer has not been studied. Thus, the present study was investigated the hypothesis that change to unhealthy dietary pattern was positively associated with risk for recurrence of cancer and negatively with disease-free survival in breast cancer survivor. Patients who diagnosed with breast cancer were recruited from Hanyang University Seoul Hospital from 2011 to 2016. Patients were categorized into patients with (n=40) and without (n=160) recurrence of cancer. Dietary intake was assessed using 24 hour recall shortly after diagnosed breast cancer and after 13 month follow-up. At baseline, there was no significant differences in dietary intake between patients with and without recurrence of cancer. The risk for recurrence of cancer was positively associated with unhealthy dietary pattern involving consumption of sweet, beverage and meat, while negatively associated with healthy dietary pattern at 13 month follow-up. In addition, unhealthy dietary pattern showed a significant effect on disease-free survival in unvariable and multivariable analyses. The present study was the first to show the positive association between risk for recurrence of cancer and a change to unhealthy dietary pattern, suggesting that unhealthy pattern after diagnosed with breast cancer could increase the risk of cancer recurrence and decrease disease-free survival among breast cancer survivor.