The patterns of breast cancer risk in Chinese women are partly aligned with known risk factors for women in developed countries. It is anticipated that the cases of breast cancer in China will increase from less than 60 cases per 100,000 women aged 55–69 years to more than 100 cases per 100,000 women, reaching 2.5 million cases overall by 2021. By 2008, China accounted for 12.2% of global cases of invasive breast cancer and 9.6% of the related deaths. Since the 1990s, the incidence of breast cancer in China has increased more than twice as fast as the global rates, particularly in urban areas.
Especially in South America, Africa, and Asia, the incidence of breast cancer is increasing instead of decreasing. However, breast cancer continues to be the most common cause of female death in developing countries and second to lung cancer in developed countries. The 5-year survival increased from 74.0 to 88.5%. Based on the National Cancer Institute (NCI)‘s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program of the United States, the incidence of breast cancer among women aged 20 to 39 years increased from 24.6/1000,000 to 31.7/100,000 from 1975 to 2015. One in eight to ten women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. Further prospective studies need to be made to validate our findings.īreast cancer, lung cancer, and colon cancer are the three most common cancers worldwide.
Conclusionsīeing aware of their cancer diagnosis plays a protective role in extending the survival time of breast cancer patients, which suggests that medical staff and patients’ families should disclose the cancer diagnosis to patients in a timely manner. Cox regression analysis showed that knowing a cancer diagnosis was an independent risk factor for survival in breast cancer patients ( P < 0.001). By stratified analysis, except for the subgroups of male patients and stage III patients, patients who knew their diagnosis showed a better prognosis in all the other subgroups ( P < 0.05). After PSM, the above conclusion was still established. Before PSM, both the 3-year and 5-year survival rates of patients who knew their cancer diagnosis were longer ( P < 0.001). Resultsīy June 2017, 18.04% of the participants died of breast cancer. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to balance the clinicopathologic characteristics between patients who knew their diagnosis and those who did not. We followed up all participants every 6 months until June 2017. Potential factors, including knowing the cancer diagnosis status, sex, age, clinical stage, surgery history, grade of reporting hospital and diagnostic year were, analyzed. MethodsĪ total of 12,327 breast cancer patients were enrolled between October 2002 and December 2016.
This retrospective cohort study aims to explore the association between early informed diagnosis and survival time in breast cancer patients. The effect of informed diagnosis on long-term survival is not fully understood. The health burden of breast cancer is rising in China.