The Incidence of Breast Cancer in Northwest Iran (2003 - 2008)

Introduction: Breast Cancer is the most common cancer in Iranian women and Iranian patients are relatively young. Given that Iran has a female population of about 38 million, this corresponds to a total number of 6000 new cases of breast cancer annually. This study aims to demonstrate the characteristics of breast cancers according to pathologic records in East Azerbaijan province, Iran. Methods: In this retrospective cross-sectional study, 159314 pathology records of the main hospitals and pathology laboratories were observed for a period of 5 years. For each patient, sex, age, breast specimen pathology, pathological grading of malignant lesions and place of residence of patients were collected and statistically analyzed. Results: There were 12083 cancer cases; 902 of which were primary breast cancer. Breast cancer was the most common cancer in females (22.2%) but it ranks the 22nd in males. The annual incidence of breast cancer in women was 52.3 per 100,000. The mean age of women with breast cancer was 48.3 +/- 12.7 years (range, 16-85) and for male 54.0 +/- 13.6 years (range, 23-76). The highest frequency of malignancies was observed in the 40-49 year old age groups (34.5%). Invasive ductal carcinoma was the most common histological type diagnosed in both sexes. Conclusion: In Iran, breast cancer affects women at least one decade younger than developed countries. In spite of the rare incidence of breast cancer in men, the descriptive epidemiology of this malignancy is surprisingly similar to that of women. A considerable proportion of cancers of our research were in breast which mandates a national cancer detection program encouraging women for breast self-examination and participation in screening tests to improve breast cancer care.