DESIGN: Prospective cohort study.
SETTING: England, Wales and Scotland.
PARTICIPANTS: 17 781 postmenopausal women from the UK Women's Cohort Study.
PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURE: Incident cases of malignant breast cancers (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 9 code 174 and ICD 10 code C50).
RESULTS: From 282 277 person-years follow-up, there were 946 incident breast cancer cases with an incidence rate of 3.35 per 1000 women. Body mass index (HR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.07), blouse size (HR: 1.10; 1.03 to 1.18), waist circumference (HR: 1.07; 1.01 to 1.14) and skirt size (HR: 1.14;1.06 to 1.22) had positive associations with postmenopausal breast cancer after adjustment for potential confounders. Increased weight over adulthood (HR: 1.02; 1.01 to 1.03) was also associated with increased risk for postmenopausal breast cancer.
CONCLUSIONS: Blouse and skirt sizes can be used as adipose indicators in predicting postmenopausal breast cancer. Maintaining healthy body weight over adulthood is an effective measure in the prevention of postmenopausal breast cancer.