Speaker
Description
Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in females worldwide. Stage at diagnosis is an important prognostic factor with early-stage patients generally having a better survival than patients diagnosed with late stage. Despite this, little evidence exists about breast cancer survival by stage at diagnosis in transitioning countries.
Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore variations in breast cancer survival by stage at diagnosis in transitioning countries.
Methods: This study is a population-based study with all data coming from the SURVCAN-3 dataset. This dataset collected patient-level data, including stage information, from population-based cancer registries in 65 jurisdictions from 31 countries. Registries that had 50% or more of the breast cancer cases staged were included. Age-standardized 1-, 3- and 5-year net survival for non-metastatic, metastatic, and missing stage were calculated for each included registry. Additionally, based on a data quality table and if the registry had more than 30 cases in each stage category, multiple imputation was used to reassign missing stage data. For these registries, age-standardized 1-, 3- and 5-year net survival was calculated by stage and country.
Results: Preliminary results show large proportions of advanced disease with variation across countries ranging from 4% (Algeria) to 18% (Bahrain) with metastatic disease. Variation in breast cancer survival by stage at diagnosis and across countries was observed.
Conclusion: Stage information is an important indicator for survival that cancer registries should collect. The observed variation in breast cancer survival by stage at diagnosis across transitioning countries is informative for cancer control and identifying regions where additional resources are required to improve survival.
