Analysis on Incidence and Mortality Trends and Age–Period–Cohort of Breast Cancer in Chinese Women from 1990 to 2019

Aims: To analyze the incidence and mortality trends of breast cancer among women in China from 1990 to 2019 and explore the effects of age, period, and cohort on the incidence and mortality of breast cancer. Methods: We performed a Joinpoint regression model to describe trends in breast cancer incidence and mortality. We used an age–period–cohort analysis model to estimate the impact of age, period, and cohort on breast cancer incidence and mortality. We collected breast cancer incidence and mortality among women aged 20–89 in China (1990–2019) from the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) database. Results: The crude incidence and mortality of breast cancer from 1990 to 2019 in Chinese women showed an increasing trend, with an average annual increase percentage (AAPC) of 4.69% and 2.18%, respectively. The analysis on the age–period–cohort model revealed that the risk of incidence increased first and then decreased with age and peaked at 55–59 years old, whereas the risk of mortality increased by approximately 60.34 times from 20 to 89 years old. The risk of incidence and mortality increased by 2.64 and 1.49 times with the passage of time, respectively. The later the birth cohort is, the lower the risk of incidence and mortality will be. Conclusion: From 1990 to 2019, the incidence and mortality of breast cancer among Chinese women showed an increasing trend, and the prevention and control situation of breast cancer was still grim. Therefore, visual examination and palpation examination should be actively carried out in adult women with breast cancer, and the conventional population after 40 years of age, the high-risk population carrying hereditary breast cancer gene and the elderly population should be assisted with imaging examination along with palpation examination. When treating patients suffering from breast cancer, in order to reduce the death rate, a personalized treatment plan should be developed based on the characteristics of different patients.