The Prevalence and Correlates of Breast Cancer among Women in Eastern China

Abstract

The purpose was to investigate the prevalence rate, characteristics and related factors of breast cancer among women in Eastern China. A total of 122,058 female subjects completed the study, with 320 confirmed cases of breast cancer (crude prevalence: 262.5/100,000; standardized prevalence: 207.7/100,000). Among all of the identified breast cancer cases, 91.6% were diagnosed after the age of 35 and 60.0% were diagnosed before menopause. The odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of those breast cancer risk factors as selected through multivariate logistic regression were as follows: 5.438 (1.553–19.004) for family history of breast cancer, 3.556 (1.880–6.728) for high behavior intervention score, 3.556 (0.904–13.994) for history of diabetes, 3.357 (1.131–9.969) for history of benign breast tumors, 2.196 (1.355–3.556) for poor overall life satisfaction, 1.826 (0.995–3.350) for premenopause of breast cancer, 1.528 (1.083–2.155) for high BMI index, 1.500 (0.920–2.446) for poor financial status, 1.497 (1.014–2.211) for multiple miscarriages/abortions, and 1.231 (0.972–1.559) for infrequent consumption of garlic (frequent garlic consumption is a protective factor). There were significantly more cases of breast cancer diagnosed prior to menopause than after menopause, and most of the patients were diagnosed after the age of 35. These findings suggest that attention should be focused on the incidence of breast cancer among premenopausal women older than 35.

Characteristics of breast cancer in Central China, literature review and comparison with USA

“…For example, we should put more attention to the patients less than 50 years old, with stage II and tumor size T2, and selected proper screening strategies. A large scale study was conducted for investigating the prevalence of BC among women in Eastern China [18]. The results showed that the attention of BC incidence for women should be paid at the age of 35.…”

Obesity, diabetes mellitus, and the risk of female breast cancer in Eastern China

“…All the women with breast cancer and controls were ascertained from our previous epidemiology survey in Eastern China, which was carried out using multistage stratified cluster sampling method during the period from 15 July to 15 September 2008, in Shandong, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Tianjin, in Eastern China [10]. For that survery, women aged 25 to 70 years old were interviewed.…”

“…After the whole investigation was completed, the questionnaires were entered twice into a computer by two different inputters blinded to the study goals, with the second person correcting any inconsistencies found in the first set of data. Detailed information is available in the previously published paper [10]. …”

“…We used 1:3 matched case–control study to explore the association between obesity and DM and female breast cancer, enrolling 123 women with breast cancer and 369 controls [10]. …”

The Healthcare Costs of Secondhand Smoke Exposure in Rural China

“…The third one was performed by using published disease rates for the Chinese population. [20][21][22] This was done because the disease rates reported in the NRHS are lower than those generally published.…”