Outcome of Breast Cancer in Iran: a Study of Tehran Cancer Registry Data

Background: Breast Cancer is the second most common cancer among Iranian women. This study was conducted to define the outcome of breast cancer which had been registered by Tehran Cancer Registry.

Methods: All Tehranian breast cancer which registered from 1998 to 2001 was selected; the repeated cases were excluded according to their common name, family name, and Father's name. A simple data collection form was used to complete the demographic and diagnostic time and survival situation of the cases by five educated technicians with using phone interviews with patients or their families. All data were entered in Access file and then exported to SPSS-11.5, for descriptive and analytic analysis, p value was significant under 0.05. Since there were some cases had not phone number or the phone numbers were not accessible; 360 cases were selected with Simple Random Sampling and their hospital files were reviewed to complete the demographic and location situations data. Kaplan- Meier regression model was used for computing the survival.

Results: Of the 7098 records, 4416 records were interviewed by phone. This phone interviews were succeeded among 2358 cases; Tehranian and other cities were defined in 986 and 1372 records respectively. The Tehranian cases were estimated 36.9% (CI95%: 31.9%-41.8%). The mean age of patients was 51.3+/-12.5, 31.4% of them was under 40 years old, the incidence rate of breast cancer in 100,000 women was estimated 17.09 CI95% (15.67-18.50). Infiltrating duct carcinoma was the most morphology (68.4%). Right, left, and both breast involvement were seen in 48.6% CI95% (43.4%-53.8%), 46.1% CI95 %( 41.0%-51.2%), 0.3% CI95%(0.1%-0.5%) respectively. The tumor size over 2 centimeters was seen in 63.6% of cases at diagnostic time. Lymphadenopathy and metastasis were seen in 48.3% CI95% (43.1%-53.5%), and 19.7% CI95% (15.6%-23.8%) of cases. The median survival was 5.0 years CI95% (4.9 years-5.1 years).

Conclusion: This retrospective survival study was shown the seven years follow up from 1998 to 2005, women which were diagnosed in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001; 55.9%, 61.4%, 60.3%, 66% were alive respectively. Interventional projects for increasing the survival rate, early detection, and effective treatment of breast cancer were recommended.