ABSTRACT
Breast cancer is one of the most common types of malignant diseases, affecting millions of women around the world, with a high fatality rate (Ghafoor et al.,2001) The prevalence rate of breast cancer, particularly in Nigerian females, has shown a spike in recent years and accounts for 20% to 25% of malignant tumors in women with an annual incidence of about 800 to 1000 cases (Adebamowo and Ajayi, 2000).The "Evaluation of the Relationship between the Incidence of breast cancer and some anthropometric variables in women in Zaria, Nigeria" was undertaken using 718 subjects: 352 breast cancer patients attending clinic in the department of radiotherapy and oncology Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria. And 366 randomly selected control females from among student and staff of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria from different ethnic background, aged 17 to 75 years. A structural questionnaire was used to collect detailed information from participants regarding age, menarcheal age, parity, order of birth of participants, educational level, and ethnic background.The following anthropometric variables was measured .Weight (Kg), height (cm), Body mass index (kg/mÂ�), waist circumference (cm), hip circumference (cm) and Waist hip ratio (cm). The result showed that majority of the study participants are overweight (mean Body mass index 26.842 Â� 21.392) .It was also observed that mean age, weight, Body mass index and Waist hip ratio were higher in the breast cancer group compared to the control group. The breast cancer frequency was seen to be more in multiparous women compared to those with one child and no child. In the association with order of birth breast cancer incidence was higher in first born women when compared to women born of other ranks. Breast cancer incidence was higher in women with early age at menarche compared to women with late menarche. Also women with higher educational level showed higher incidence of breast cancer. Family history of breast cancer had no protective effect on breast cancer incidence ix because women with no family history of breast cancer had higher breast cancer incidence compared to women with family history of breast cancer. The incidence of breast cancer was higher among the Hausa and the ethnic group classified as others compared to the Igbo and the Yoruba groups. All the anthropometric variables studied in this work were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.001) except for the age at menarche (p = 0.413) and height (p =0.724). From the present study neither family history of breast cancer nor parity but rather body mass index and waist hip ratio affects breast cancer incidence independently from the anthropometric variables, as found in many other populations (Friedenreinch, 2001).