Breast and Ovarian Cancer in Young Women of the Arabian Gulf Region: Relationship to Age

Abstract

It is widely known that cancer is a disease of "old-age". However available data show that this is not the case for many types of cancers. Incidences of breast and ovarian cancers have varying rates of change with age. Breast cancer data of Arabian-gulf women, show that the incidence rates increase with age and reach a maximum at 39 year. It then declines linearly with age to about 55 years. The rate of increase and its changes with age are similar to those of many other countries. In the premenopausal phase the relationship between incidence and age could be adequately modeled using a linear model for the logarithmic transformations of age and incidence. Similar observations are made for the ovarian cancer incidences. Results: It is shown that the rate of increase in breast and ovarian cancer incidence with respect to age is increasing in the premenopausal ages. Moreover, the burden of the disease with respect to mortality and "Disability Adjusted Life Years" or DALY, varied considerably among the six gulf countries. Conclusions: We conclude, based on the age incidence relationship that the number of cancer cases may double in the next period that follows our study period (1998-2009). Moreover, if the six countries have identical relationship between age and the two types of cancer, there should be an integrated and unified effort to have a common strategy for prevention and control.