Saba Sohail, Shams Nadeem Alam.
Breast cancer in Pakistan - awareness and early detection.
J Coll Physicians Surg Pak Jan ;17(12):711-2.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of women mortality and cancer-related morbidity across the world. Pakistani women are no exception. Like carcinoma lung, it has shown an exponential rise in incidence after the Second World War. International as well as local figure indicate this disease alone to be accountable for about a third of all the cancers in females and one out of every ten new cancer cases turns out to be carcinoma breast. Approximately one in every 9 Pakistani women is likely to suffer from breast cancer which is one of the highest incidence rates in Asia. Geographic incidence of the disease does vary with India, China, Japan and Philippines being the traditional low-risk countries. What is absolutely amazing is that Pakistani women show an incidence rate of 50.1/ 100,000 and the neighboring India with similar sociocultural background of a young age at first child-birth and breast-feeding practices, has an incidence rate of only 19/ 100,000. Differences in diet or genetic factors may provide a partial explanation. This is an Editorial.

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