Since 1980, twice as many breast cancer cases

Since 1980, the breast cancer rate has increased worldwide by 260 percent

15/09/2011

An increasing number of women are suffering from breast cancer, according to a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. The number of patients worldwide has risen sharply: in 2010, around 1.6 million new patients suffered from breast cancer. That's twice as many as 30 years ago. Nevertheless, the death rate has fallen in western countries.

A common cause of death for women over the age of 15 is breast and cervical cancer. US researchers therefore investigated the mortality rates of patients from 187 countries and found a rapid increase in disease. Although fewer and fewer women die from breast cancer, the incidence rate has more or less doubled since 1980. Physicians at the Institute of Health Criteria and Evaluation of the US University of Washington in Seattle have featured in the journal „The Lancet“ presented the evaluations of cancer records of the last 30 years. They found that the breast cancer cases have greatly maximized throughout the world. While around 640,000 new cases were counted in 1980, last year there were already more than 1.6 million new cases of illness. Statistically, this means an increase of 260 percent and an annual rate of increase of 3.1 percent. The research consortium found a significant increase in first-onset diseases, especially among women younger than 15 to 49 years of age in developing countries.

Fewer patients die of breast cancer
On a positive note, the number of consecutive deaths from breast cancer has dropped proportionately between the 1980 and 2010 study periods. In fact, 250,000 people died of breast cancer in 1980 and 425,000 in 2010, although the increase is relative to the number of first-time diagnoses. Accordingly, the number of deaths increased relatively slower than the new diseases. To put it more clearly, far fewer patients die of malignant tumors in the breast than in the 1980s. The researchers also found that the incidence of cervical cancer and death rates has plummeted, even though more than 200,000 women died of cancer in 2010.

Higher mortality rates in developing countries
During the research, the research team examined the statistics and history of breast cancer and cervical cancer. They used a total of 300 central cancer registries from 187 states. To secure the data, the scientists used the „Gaussian process regression“, to balance mortality, age, country, and year. More than half (51 percent) of cancer tumors now occur in Third World countries. In 1980, the share here was only 35 percent. In Western industrialized countries like the USA, every 32nd female patient died of breast cancer in 1980, and thirty years later only one in every 47th woman succumbed to breast cancer. In developing countries, a contrary trend is detectable: Here every sixtieth woman dies from breast cancer. Thirty years ago, in poor countries, only one in every 97 people succumbed to the suffering. Why more patients in developing countries die from cancer today can only be guessed at. Either data in the Third World countries are better captured today, or increasing environmental poisoning contributes to increased mortality. Both must cover further research. The scientists demanded in the light of the evaluations „more political attention to invest more in research, especially in developing countries“.

Cervical cancer mortality in western countries has fallen, according to scientists, as a result of improved preventive care and programs. More women are going to check-ups in industrialized countries. "Women in higher-income countries like the US and the UK benefit from cancer screening, drug treatment and vaccines," study author Rafael Lozano said. Why the breast cancer rate has gone up, the researchers could not name. For example, further studies have shown that the use of hormones during menopause increases the risk of breast cancer.

Benefits and risks of mammography screening controversial
In evidence-based medicine, the consideration of benefits and possible health effects of early breast cancer detection is controversial. Danish researchers, for example, found in a study in 2010 that mammography screening in older women between the ages of 50 and 69 does not make any positive contribution to lowering the mortality rate. According to the physicians of the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen, spotted tumors could not evolve so quickly as malignant and then be treated successfully. In the evaluation, the Danish researchers were unable to detect a connection between mammography and the decline in the mortality data. They criticize the fact that mammography screening often leads to overdiagnosis and women are unnecessarily confronted with stressful breast cancer treatment. However, the derivation and the methodological implementation of the study is strongly criticized by a wide circle of experts. (Sb)

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