Incidence of Breast Cancer in Eritrea: A Retrospective Study from 2011 to 2017

In Africa, breast cancer closely compares with cervical cancer as the most common malignancy affecting women and the incidence rates appear to be rising. Eritrea is experiencing a growing breast cancer problem, but little is presently known on tumor patterns, breast cancer epidemiology, and risk factors. The main objective of this study is to provide baseline data on breast cancer incidence in both sexes in Eritrea. This study was carried out retrospectively and quantitatively by collecting, abstracting, analyzing, coding, and interpreting data recorded in National Health Laboratory (NHL) using CanReg5 ver. 5.00.35. Extracting and classification of the tumor data was done using topography, morphology together with the ICD-10. To generate the incidence rate for the seven years the Eritrean population dataset was used from the population pyramid net for 2014. After we entered all the data from Pathology department in NHL, data was analyzed using the predetermined and developed built-in analysis tools of CanReg5 software and Microsoft Excel 2010. A total number of 9,403 pathology cases were recorded from 2011 to 2017. Out of these 1,497 cases were confirmed as cytology and histology of breast cases. From 1,497 confirmed breast cases in both sexes, the incidence of benign cases was higher than incidence of malignant cases with the case number of 1, 149, and 348, respectively. Out of the 1,497 cases, 1,447 (96.66%) were females; this included a total incidence cases of female benign and malignant breast cases 1,111 (76.78%), and 336 (23.22%), respectively. In both female and male age group the highest positive cases were found in the age greater than 85. The incidence age standard rate per 100,000 in females and male was 3.3 and 0.2, respectively. In sum, the age standardized incidence of breast cancer was relatively low. However, it is our opinion that the low prevalence may be due to low awareness and a highly centralized screening and diagnostic services. This limits access. Altogether, it is our opinion that breast cancer presents a burden to Eritrean ministry of health.