Breast carcinoma presents a decade earlier in Mexican women than in women in the United States or European countries.

BACKGROUND

In Mexico, breast carcinoma is the second most frequent malignancy, representing 10.6% of all cases and 16.4% of all cancers in women, with an increase in breast carcinoma mortality rates from 3.6 per 100,000 women in 1985 to 6 per 100,000 women in 1994. Most of the tumors are diagnosed in advanced stages with little chance of cure.

METHODS

To determine the age of patients in Mexico at presentation of breast carcinoma, the authors analyzed the cases registered from 1993 to 1996 from the database of the Histopathological Registry of Malignant Neoplasms in Mexico.

RESULTS

There were 29,075 cases of breast carcinoma. The median age of Mexican women with breast carcinoma is 51 years, and 45.5% of all breast carcinomas develop before patients reach age 50 years. The most frequently affected age group is that of 40-49 years (29.5%), whereas the groups from 30 to 39 and from 60 to 69 years of age have a similar percentage (14%) of frequency. This contrasts with women from the United States, as well as with women from European countries, where the median age at presentation is 63 years, and only one-fourth of the patients are younger than 50 years of age, and three-fourths are postmenopausal. Similar to Mexico, in Venezuela and in Japan nearly one-half of women with breast carcinoma are younger than 50 years of age, and this resembles rates in many Latin American countries.

CONCLUSIONS

It is necessary to change the guidelines of breast carcinoma screening in Mexican women, to increase the possibility of early diagnosis and better survival.