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Recent trends and patterns in breast cancer incidence among Eastern and Southeastern Asian women

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Abstract

Background

Incidence of breast cancer is rising in Asian countries, and breast cancer is the most common cancer among Asian women. However, there are few recent descriptive reports on the epidemiology of breast cancer among Eastern and Southeastern Asian populations.

Methods

We examined incidence trends for invasive breast cancer in women aged ≥20 years from 15 registries in Eastern (China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan) and Southeastern Asia (the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) for the period 1993–2002 mainly using data from Cancer Incidence in Five Continents, Volumes VIII and IX. We compared trends in annual incidence rates and age-specific incidence curves over a 10-year period. We also compared the incidence rates of Asian-Americans with the rates of their Asian counterparts.

Results

Breast cancer incidence rates increased gradually over time in all study populations. Rates were relatively high in Southeastern Asia and became progressively lower along a south-to-north gradient, with a fourfold geographic variation within the study populations. Age-specific incidence curves showed patterns that gradually changed according to incidence rates. Breast cancer incidence among Asian women living in the United States was 1.5–4 times higher than the corresponding incidence rate in the women’s respective countries of origin.

Conclusion

Breast cancer incidence is expected to continue to increase for the next 10 years in Asia and may approach rates reported among Asian-Americans. The number and mean age of breast cancer cases is expected to increase as the female Asian population ages, the prevalence of certain risk factors changes (early menarche, late menopause, low parity, late age at first live birth, and low prevalence of breastfeeding), and as Asian countries introduce mass screening programs.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the cancer registries that contributed data to Cancer Incidence in Five Continents, volumes VIII and IX, and those that permitted us to use their data. We thank Mr. Mathieu Mazuir for data extraction and Mr. John Daniel for manuscript editing.

Competing interests

None declared.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Mathieu Boniol & Philippe Autier

    Present address: International Prevention Research Institute, Lyon, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Agency for Research on Cancer, 150 Cours Albert Thomas, 69372, Lyon cedex 08, France

    Hai-Rim Shin, Clementine Joubert, Mathieu Boniol, Clarisse Hery, Maria Paula Curado & Philippe Autier

  2. Korea Central Cancer Registry, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Republic of Korea

    Hai-Rim Shin & Young-Joo Won

  3. Korea Breast Cancer Registry, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Sei Hyun Ahn

  4. Miyagi Cancer Registry, Miyagi, Japan

    Yoshikazu Nishino

  5. National Cancer Center, Tokyo, Japan

    Tomotaka Sobue

  6. Taiwan Cancer Registry and Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chien-Jen Chen & San-Lin You

  7. DOH Rizal Cancer Registry, Pasig, Philippines

    Maria Rica Mirasol-Lumague

  8. Hong Kong Cancer Registry, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Stephen Chun-Key Law & Oscar Mang

  9. Department of Epidemiology, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Yong-Bing Xiang

  10. Centre for Molecular Epidemiology and Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Kee-Seng Chia

  11. Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok, Thailand

    Suthee Rattanamongkolgul

  12. Qidong Cancer Registry, Qidong, People’s Republic of China

    Jian-Guo Chen

Authors
  1. Hai-Rim Shin
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  2. Clementine Joubert
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  19. Philippe Autier
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hai-Rim Shin.

Appendix A

Appendix A

See Table 4.

Table 4 Quality of indices of breast cancer incidence data from 15 cancer registries for 1993–1997 and 1998–2002
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Shin, HR., Joubert, C., Boniol, M. et al. Recent trends and patterns in breast cancer incidence among Eastern and Southeastern Asian women. Cancer Causes Control 21, 1777–1785 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-010-9604-8

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