Incidence of female breast cancer in Arkansas: are we following the national trend?

The incidence of invasive female breast cancer declined 6.7% in the United States from 2002 to 2003 following a nationwide decrease in the use of hormone replacement therapy that began in 2002. We used data from the Arkansas Central Cancer Registry to look for similar changes in the incidence of female breast cancer in Arkansas. There was a 9.3% decline in the incidence of invasive female breast cancer in Arkansas in 2003, and the decline continued through 2005. The decline was significantly higher (p<0.05) among invasive cancers, particularly among women ages 50 and older and for those having an estrogen-receptor positive tumor.