Characterizing Pathogenic Risk Factors Associated With Breast Cancer In Ghanaian Women

Cancer is a major health burden worldwide as a result of its high frequency of mortality and morbidity. The most frequent cancer globally among women is breast cancer with a high death rate of about 458,000 deaths per year. Breast cancer is a multi-factorial disease which acts in sequence or simultaneously to initiate and/or promote tumour growth (Ritchie et al., 2001). The origin of breast cancer is poorly understood but it has been associated with are risk factors such as obesity, gender, family history and consumption of alcohol (Pai et al., 2018). Studies on some cancers have suggested the association of certain microbes with some cancers, indicating that these viruses and bacteria may persist in the specialized niche provided by the tumour microenvironment (Banerjee et al., 2018; Glenn et al., 2012; Naushad et al., 2017; Urbaniak et al., 2016; Xuan et al., 2014). Thus, 17.8% of cancers are linked to infectious agents and 12.1% of this number may be as a result of viral infections (Akhter et al., 2014). Whole genome sequencing of breast invasive breast cancers identified about 40 different viruses (Lawson & Glenn, 2017). However, the key viruses that have been linked to breast cancer are Bovine Leukaemia Virus (BLV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Mouse Mammary Tumour Virus (MMTV) and Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).