Breast cancer at medical centers in Israel, the West Bank, and the United States.

Abstract

A comparison is made of the characteristics of female breast cancer patients, their diseases, and treatment practices in medical centers in Israel and the West Bank of the Jordan River. This experience is further compared with tumor registry data from a major medical center in the United States. Differences are found in the age distributions of patients, marital status, parity, stage of disease at diagnosis, delay between onset of symptoms and diagnosis as well as between diagnosis and treatment. Some of these observations reflect differences in population characteristics, sociocultural practices and local attitudes toward disease, its diagnosis and management.