No abstract

Background: Historically, breast cancer (BC) incidence and survival in middle income countries are lower than in developed countries. The aim of this study was to provide recent data on the BC incidence and survival in Iran. Methods: Data of the patients diagnosed with confirmed BC as registered in the East Azerbaijan cancer registry between 2011 and 2015 were linked to the regional death registration system. The 5 year age standardized incidence rates (ASIRs) for BC were estimated. With Kaplan Meier methods, the BC specific one and five year survival rates were estimated. Results: There were 2,677 patients diagnosed with breast cancer, 97.6% (n ¼ 2612) were female, with a mean age of 51 of years (SD: 13.28). Over the study period, the ASIRs increased from 1.08 to 16.12 per 100,000. The one and five year BC specific survival rates were 96.5%, 59.3%, respectively. Conclusions: We observed a sharp increase in incidence BC, which might be explained by the improvement of compliance to the cancer registration. Survival rates are still low compared to western countries.