Twenty years of breast cancer in Iran: downstaging without a formal screening program

Abstract

despite the relative improvement in the status of BC patients, the vast majority are diagnosed in advanced stages. Specific screening measures should be implemented in Iran.

Trends in Epidemiology, Clinical and Histopathological Characteristics of Breast Cancer in Iran: Results of a 17 Year Study

“…Paucity of data linking probable factors to increased risk of BC in the developing countries is still a problem (Porter, 2009). In Iran, BC is the most common primary cancer among women (24 per 100,000) and the proportion of newly diagnosed cases has gone up, recently (Mousavi et al, 2009;Harirchi et al, 2011). In our study, the percentage of patients diagnosed with BC has risen from 19.8% in 1994 to 25.7% in 2009.…”

“…Also, subjects were stratified into five age groups: ≤40 years, 41-50 years, 51-60 years, 61-70 years, and 71≤ years. Cut-off age for young women has varied from 35-40 years in some studies (Fisher et al,1997;Colleoni et al, 2002;Harirchi et al, 2011). We selected 40 years or under, since it provided a group of reasonable size which was compatible with other studies.…”

“…Almost, 50% of BC occurs in women ≤65 years and more than 30% in women ≤70 years in developed nations (Yancik et al, 2001). The highest incidence of BC in Iran is among women in their fifth decade of life (Mousavi et al, 2007;Harirchi et al, 2011). High rate of young population in Iran (mean age: 30.33 in 2011), necessitates establishing ageoriented screening and treatment plans for Iranian women.…”

Increased Trend of Breast Cancer Mortality in Iran

“…Early detection of breast cancer is the key for decreasing its burden. So, specific screening measures should be implemented for Iranian women and special programs should be considered for younger women (Mousavi et al, 2006;Harirchi et al, 2011). On the other hand Iranian studies indicated that the women's awareness of BC warning signs and effective screening were very inadequate (Yavari and Pourhoseingholi., 2007;Montazeri et al, 2008).…”

Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of the Self-Assessed Support Needs Questionnaire for Breast Cancer Cases

“…According to the international reports, an annual 1.15 million cases are identified globally, and 502000 patients die from this disease each year (Harirchi et al, 2011). In Iran, with crude incidence of nearly 24.4% and Age Specific Rate (ASR) of 23.65% in 2006, breast cancer in female population was the most common type of all cancers, and the third cause of mortality (Ebrahimi et al, 2007;Mousavi et al, 2009;Fouladi et al, 2012).…”