TITLE:
Breast and Ovarian Cancer in Young Women of the Arabian Gulf Region: Relationship to Age
AUTHORS:
Sarah Al-Gahtani, Suhair Abozaid, Elham Al-Nami, Leen Merie, Ayana Al-Yousef, Mohamed M. Shoukri
KEYWORDS:
Gulf Cancer Registry, Breast and Ovarian Cancers, Risk Factors, DALY, Incidence Rates, Linear Models
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Epidemiology,
Vol.6 No.3,
August
22,
2016
ABSTRACT: It is widely known that cancer is a disease
of “old-age”. However available data show that this is not the case for many
types of cancers. Incidences of breast and ovarian cancers have varying rates
of change with age. Breast cancer data of Arabian-gulf women, show that the
incidence rates increase with age and reach a maximum at 39 year. It then
declines linearly with age to about 55 years. The rate of increase and its
changes with age are similar to those of many other countries. In the
premenopausal phase the relationship between incidence and age could be
adequately modeled using a linear model for the logarithmic transformations of
age and incidence. Similar observations are made for the ovarian cancer
incidences. Results: It is shown that the rate of increase in breast and
ovarian cancer incidence with respect to age is increasing in the premenopausal
ages. Moreover, the burden of the disease with respect to mortality and
“Disability Adjusted Life Years” or DALY, varied considerably among the six
gulf countries. Conclusions: We conclude, based on the age incidence
relationship that the number of cancer cases may double in the next period that
follows our study period (1998-2009). Moreover, if the six countries have
identical relationship between age and the two types of cancer, there should be
an integrated and unified effort to have a common strategy for prevention and
control.