Incidence and mortality of breast cancer and Human development Index: An updated study on the Asian population in 2018

Objective: The incidence of breast cancer is rising rapidly and is a major concern for women's health worldwide. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiology of incidence and mortality of breast cancer and its relation to the Human Development Index (HDI) in Asia in the year 2018. Methods: This is a descriptive-analytical study that is based on extraction of cancer incidence data and cancer mortality rates from the GLOBOCAN in 2018. The incidence and mortality rates and breast cancer distribution maps were drawn for Asia. To analyze data, the researchers used correlation test to evaluate the correlation between the incidence and mortality with HDI. The statistical analysis was carried out by Stata-14 and the significance level was estimated at the level of 0.05. Materials and Methods: The results of recorded cancer data in 2018 showed that Lebanon (97.6 per 100,000) had the highest incidence and Syrian Arab Republic (26.9 per 100,000) had the highest mortality rate in Asia. There was a significant positive correlation between the incidence rate (R = 0.533, P <0.0001) and the HDI. Whereas, there was a negative poor correlation (R = 0.02, P> 0.05) between mortality of breast cancer with the HDI which was not statistically significant. In addition, a significant positive correlation was found between the incidence rate and GNI (r = 0.32, P <0.05), MYS (r = 0.403, P <0.001), LEB (r = 0.613, P <0.001) and EYS (r = 0.32, P < 0.05). Conclusion: The incidence of breast cancer rises with the increase in the level of the HDI in Asia. On the other hand, the observed correlation between incidence rates and education level, gross national income and life expectancy may indicate that screening and early detection of the disease were higher in Asian countries than in countries with low HDI. There may be risk factors associated with higher incidence rates in these countries.