Risk of contralateral second primary breast cancer according to hormone receptor status in Germany

INTRODUCTION: Hormone receptor (HR) status has become an established target in treatment strategies of breast cancer. Population-based estimates of contralateral breast cancer (CBC) incidence by HR subtype in particular are limited. The aim of this study was to provide detailed data on CBC incidence for Germany. METHODS: Invasive breast cancer data were extracted on 49,804 women yielding 594 second primaries from the cancer registries of the Federal States of Brandenburg and Saarland and the area of Munich for the period from 1998 to 2007. Multiple imputation was used on missing values for HR status. We estimated standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs). RESULTS: SIR estimates of CBC among women diagnosed with an invasive first primary breast cancer (FBC) of any HR subtype ranged from 1.0 to 1.5 in the three registries. Pooling three registries’ data, the SIR of HR-positive CBC was 0.7 (95%CI: 0.6 to 0.8) among women with HR-positive FBC. For those women with HR-negative FBC, the SIR of HR-negative CBC was 8.9 (95%CI: 7.1 to 11.1). Among women with FBC diagnosed before the age of 50 years, incidence of CBC was increased, especially for HR-negative FBC (SIR: 9.2; 95%CI: 7.1 to 11.9). CONCLUSIONS: HR status of the first primary and age at first diagnosis is relevant for predicting risk of CBC. Particularly, patients with HR-negative FBC had elevated risks. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13058-014-0452-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.