Breast Cancer Risk Factors: Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) Levels

Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) is produced in the ovaries. It’s important in the development of reproductive organs. It’s a marker of ovarian reserve (the number of eggs a woman has left in her ovaries), which helps show a woman’s fertility potential.

Blood levels of AMH peak around age 20-25, then decline as a woman gets closer to menopause [28]. After menopause, AMH is no longer detectable [28].

Premenopausal women with higher blood levels of AMH may have a higher risk of breast cancer (both before and after menopause) compared to women of the same age with lower levels of AMH [28-31].

Learn about other factors linked to the risk of breast cancer.

Why might AMH blood levels be related to breast cancer risk?

Higher AMH levels may reflect some reproductive events or lifetime exposure to hormones. For example, premenopausal women with higher blood levels of AMH at a given age are more likely to have a later age at menopause than those with lower AMH levels [32].

Having a later age at menopause is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer [12-13,17,19,23]. This increased risk is likely due, at least in part, to the amount of estrogen a woman is exposed to in her life. A higher lifetime exposure to estrogen is related to an increased breast cancer risk [22].

Updated 04/22/24