PILOT STUDY ON THE INCIDENCE OF BREAST CANCER AMONG THE POPULATION OF THE NORTH EAST REGION OF BULGARIA

Purpose: According to the Bulgarian National Cancer Registry of 2017, breast cancer accounted for 26.8% of all malignancies among women. The actual incidence rate was 108.1 per 100 000. Materials/Methods: An observational retrospective study was conducted among breast cancer patients diagnosed and treated at Dr Marko Markov Specialised Hospital for Treatment of Oncologic Diseases (SHTOD) - Varna, between 2016 and 2019. Descriptive statistics and collected data included demographic characteristics, clinical data (survival rates) and type of pharmacotherapy. Results: In terms of gender distribution, significantly more women were affected, accounting for approximately 99.05%. Patients from cities were almost 7 times more than those from villages. Patients aged between 61 and 70 represented the largest number, which accounted for 28.04% of all included in the study. Conclusion: Taking into consideration not only the efficiency but also the cost-effectiveness of available treatment strategies can lead to considerably better therapeutic outcomes. There is no pharmacoeconomic data analysis in Bulgaria. A further study of all direct and indirect costs is required in order to estimate the cost of premature death, reduced working capacity and disability