Breast Cancer Among Iraqi Women: Preliminary Findings From a Regional Comparative Breast Cancer Research Project

Breast cancer is the most frequent malignancy among women worldwide, accounting for 25% of all cancers, with an estimated 1.57 million new cases in 2012. It is also the leading cause of female cancer-related deaths. Although substantial improvement in survival from this disease has been reported in high-resource countries, the risk continues to increase, yielding highmortality rates inmiddleand low-incomecountries.Within the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), cancer is the fourth-ranked cause of death, after cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, and injuries. According to WHO classification, the EMR comprises 21member states in theMiddle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. The included nations are Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian territory, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimated that 292,677 cases of cancer were newly diagnosed among the female population in EMR during 2012, and 176,139 died of the disease. The five most commonly recorded cancers in women were those of the breast, colorectum, cervix, ovary, and nonHodgkin lymphoma. Overall, 99,000 cases were registered as breast cancer in that region.