In accordance with the suggestion from previous epidemiological (Bohlke et al, 1998; Hankinson et al, 1998; Byrne et al, 2000) and experimental (Furlanetto and DiCarlo, 1984; Westley and May, 1994; Kleinberg, 1998) studies, our results support further investigation of the role of IGF1 in breast cancer aetiology. Here, IGF1 is linked to breast carcinoma.