Abstract
The study aimed to describe the age distribution of breast cancer diagnosis among Chinese females for comparison with the United States and the European Union, and provide evidence for the screening target population in China. Median age was estimated from hospital databases from 7 tertiary hospitals in China. Population-based data in China, United States and European Union was extracted from the National Central Cancer Registry, SEER program and GLOBOCAN 2008, respectively. Age-standardized distribution of breast cancer at diagnosis in the 3 areas was estimated based on the World Standard Population 2000. The median age of breast cancer at diagnosis was around 50 in China, nearly 10 years earlier than United States and European Union. The diagnosis age in China did not vary between subgroups of calendar year, region and pathological characteristics. With adjustment for population structure, median age of breast cancer at diagnosis was 50~54 in China, but 55~59 in United States and European Union. The median diagnosis age of female breast cancer is much earlier in China than in the United States and the European Union pointing to racial differences in genetics and lifestyle. Screening programs should start at an earlier age for Chinese women and age disparities between Chinese and Western women warrant further studies.
Highlights
Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent female cancer worldwide and the new cases accounted for 23% of all female cancers in 2008 (Ferlay et al, 2008), ranking second overall (Ferlay et al, 2008)
Population-based data in China, United States and European Union was extracted from the National Central Cancer Registry, SEER program and GLOBOCAN 2008, respectively
Study design Both hospital-based and population-based databases were introduced for the analyses in Chinese female cases: the hospital-based database was a 10-year retrospective multi-center female breast cancer study (Li et al, 2010; Zheng et al, 2012), recruiting female breast cancer patients from 7 tertiary hospitals at 7 classic geographic regions during 1999~2008; the population-based database was from National Central Cancer Registry 2008 database which had 95 Cancer Registry units across China
Summary
Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent female cancer worldwide and the new cases accounted for 23% of all female cancers in 2008 (Ferlay et al, 2008), ranking second overall (Ferlay et al, 2008). The study aimed to describe the age distribution of breast cancer diagnosis among Chinese females for comparison with the United States and the European Union, and provide evidence for the screening target population in China. Population-based data in China, United States and European Union was extracted from the National Central Cancer Registry, SEER program and GLOBOCAN 2008, respectively. Results: The median age of breast cancer at diagnosis was around 50 in China, nearly 10 years earlier than United States and European Union. With adjustment for population structure, median age of breast cancer at diagnosis was 50~54 in China, but 55~59 in United States and European Union. Conclusions: The median diagnosis age of female breast cancer is much earlier in China than in the United States and the European Union pointing to racial differences in genetics and lifestyle. Screening programs should start at an earlier age for Chinese women and age disparities between Chinese and Western women warrant further studies
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