Prevalence of breast cancer in a defined population in Iran

Abstract EN

Background: The prevalence of breast cancer in the developing Asian countries is much lower than that in the developed Western countries.

The main aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of breast cancer in a defined population in Iran.

Patients and Methods : we included 25201 women who were under the coverage of the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation (IKRF), which is an organization that provides supportive social and cultural services to the poor and deprived subgroups of the society.

The study was conducted during 2007 and 2008.

All subjects were interviewed for obtaining data on socio-demographic parameters before performing precise clinical and preclinical breast examinations.

Results : the mean patient age was 47 ± 10 years (range, 11-88 years).

Subjects were from the socially and culturally deprived subgroups of the study community and were mainly illiterate or had received only primary school education (86%); most of the subjects (93%) had had their first full-term pregnancy before the age of 26 years and were multiparous.

Breast cancer was diagnosed on the basis of biopsy findings, and the prevalence of breast was found to be 0.15% (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.10-0.20).

Conclusions : the people of developing Asian countries are at a lower risk of developing breast cancer than those of the developed Western countries.

Furthermore, people from the more socially and culturally deprived societal subgroups are at a much lower risk of developing breast cancer than those from the higher strata of the society.