Standardized Breast Cancer Mortality Rate Compared to the General Female Population of Iran

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Improvements of early diagnosis modalitieshave led to longer survival rates. This study aimed to determine the 5, 10 and 15 year mortality rates of breastcancer patients compared to the normal female population. Materials and
Methods: The follow up data of acohort of 615 breast cancer patients referred to Iranian Breast Cancer Research Center (BCRC) from 1986to 1996 was considered as reference breast cancer dataset. The dataset was divided into 5 year age groups andthe 5, 10 and 15 year probability of death for each group was estimated. The annual mortality rate of Iranianwomen was obtained from the Death Registry system. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) of breast cancerpatients were calculated using the ratio of the mortality rate in breast cancer patients over the general femalepopulation.
Results: The mean age of breast cancer patients at diagnosis time was 45.9 (±10.5) years rangingfrom 24-74. A total of 73, 32 and 2 deaths were recorded at 5, 10 and 15 years, respectively, after diagnosis. TheSMRs for breast cancer patients at 5, 10 and 15 year intervals after diagnosis were 6.74 (95% CI, 5.5- 8.2), 6.55(95%CI, 5-8.1) and 1.26 (95%CI, 0.65-2.9), respectively.
Conclusion: Results showed that the observed mortalityrate of breast cancer patients after 15 years from diagnosis was very similar to expected rates in general femalepopulation. This finding would be useful for clinicians and health policy makers to adopt a beneficial strategy toimprove breast cancer survival. Further follow-up time with larger sample size and a pooled analysis of survivalrates of different centres may shed more light on mortality patterns of breast cancer.