Non-invasive optical spectroscopic monitoring of breast development during puberty

Lothar Lilge, Mary Beth Terry, Jane Walter, Dushanthi Pinnaduwage, Gord Glendon, Danielle Hanna, Mai Liis Tammemagi, Angela Bradbury, Saundra Buys, Mary Daly, Esther M. John, Julia A. Knight, Irene L. Andrulis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Tanner staging (TS), a five-stage classification indicating no breast tissue (TS1) to full breast development (TS5), is used both in health research and clinical care to assess the onset of breast development (TS2) and duration in each stage. Currently, TS is measured both visually and through palpation but non-invasive methods will improve comparisons across settings. Methods: We used optical spectroscopy (OS) measures from 102 girls at the Ontario site of the LEGACY girls study (average age 12 years, range 10.0-15.4 years) to determine whether breast tissue optical properties map to each TS. We further examined whether these properties differed by age, body mass index (BMI), and breast cancer risk score (BCRS) by examining the major principal components (PC). Results: Age and BMI increased linearly with increasing TS. Eight PCs explained 99.9% of the variation in OS data. Unlike the linear increase with age and BMI, OS components had distinct patterns by TS: the onset of breast development (TS1 to TS2) was marked by elevation of PC3 scores indicating an increase in adipose tissue and decrease in signal from the pectoral muscle; transition to TS3 was marked by elevation of PC6 and PC7 and decline of PC2 scores indicating an increase in glandular or dense tissue; and transition to TS4+ by decline of PC2 scores representing a further increase in glandular tissue relative to adipose tissue. Of the eight PCs, three component scores (PC4, PC5, and PC8) remained in the best-fitting model of BCRS, suggesting different levels of collagen in the breast tissue by BCRS. Conclusions: Our results suggest that serial measures of OS, a non-invasive assessment of breast tissue characteristics, can be used as an objective outcome that does not rely on visual inspection or palpation, for studying drivers of breast development.

Original languageEnglish
Article number12
Pages (from-to)12
JournalBreast Cancer Research
Volume19
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 6 2017

Keywords

  • Adolescent
  • Body Mass Index
  • Breast Neoplasms/epidemiology
  • Breast/diagnostic imaging
  • Child
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Ontario/epidemiology
  • Optical Imaging/methods
  • Population Surveillance
  • Puberty
  • ROC Curve
  • Sexual Maturation
  • Spectrum Analysis/methods

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