Table 3.

Zinc in diet and serum in relation to recurrence-free survival (RFS), breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) and overall survival (OS).

		Dietary Intake of Zinc a						Serum Zinc a
	Zinc Quartile	Women (n)	Events (n)	Total Person Years	Mortality/1000	HR (95% CI)	HR (95% CI) b	Women (n)	Events (n)	Total Person Years	Mortality/1000	HR (95% CI)	HR (95% CI) b
RFS	1	266	67	2983	22.46	1.00	1.00	236	52	2616	19.88	1.00	1.00
	2	265	68	3296	20.63	0.87 (0.62–1.22)	0.91 (0.64–1.29)	238	60	2761	21.73	1.08 (0.75–1.57)	0.95 (0.65–1.39)
	3	265	73	3133	23.30	1.00 (0.76–1.39)	1.06 (0.75–1.50)	232	57	2827	20.16	0.95 (0.65–1.39)	0.93 (0.63–1.37)
	4	266	60	3219	18.64	0.85 (0.60–1.20)	0.90 (0.63–1.28)	233	61	2860	21.33	0.99 (0.68–1.44)	1.01 (0.69–1.49)
	P-trend					0.55	0.79					0.77	0.97
BCSS	1	266	59	3040	19.41	1.00	1.00	236	48	2692	17.83	1.00	1.00
	2	265	48	3365	14.26	0.74 (0.51–1.09)	0.75 (0.49–1.14)	238	45	2817	15.97	0.90 (0.60–1.35)	0.75 (0.50–1.15)
	3	265	53	3216	16.48	0.86 (0.59–1.24)	0.94 (0.63–1.42)	232	44	2875	15.30	0.86 (0.57–1.30)	0.84 (0.55–1.28)
	4	266	45	3210	14.02	0.70 (0.45–1.04)	0.76 (0.50–1.14)	233	39	2938	13.27	0.75 (0.49–1.14)	0.77 (0.49–1.20)
	P-trend					0.14	0.36					0.20	0.33
OS	1	266	114	3040	37.50	1.00	1.00	236	89	2692	33.06	1.00	1.00
	2	265	103	3365	30.61	0.80 (0.62–1.05)	0.85 (0.64–1.13)	238	92	2817	32.66	0.99 (0.74–1.32)	0.84 (0.62–1.12)
	3	265	113	3216	35.14	0.92 (0.71–1.20)	1.03 (0.78–1.36)	232	92	2875	32.00	0.96 (0.72–1.28)	0.91 (0.68–1.23)
	4	266	103	3210	32.09	0.82 (0.63–1.08)	0.90 (0.68–1.19)	233	96	2938	32.68	0.98 (0.72–1.30)	0.92 (0.68–1.24)
	P-trend					0.31	0.78					0.82	0.76

^a Serum zinc quartiles and quartiles of dietary intake of zinc as in Table 2. ^b Adjusted for age at baseline, age at diagnosis, baseline year, tumor size, lymph node status, distant metastasis status and intrinsic subtype.