Impact of Tumour and Factors on Survival of Breast Cancer Patients in Pakistan

Breast cancer is a major public health problem for women throughout the world. Every year more than 1.2 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer. The incidence of breast cancer in Pakistan is high compared to other Asian countries and is approximately 2.5 times that in India and Iran (Asif et al., 2014). It has been found to constitute 33% of all cancers in females registered at Nuclear Medicine, Oncology and Radiotherapy Institute (NORI) Islamabad (NORI Annual Report 2010-2012). Survival of breast cancer varies widely depending on a number of factors. Generally the major cause of short survival in breast cancer is formation of metastases (Rezaienzadeh et al., 2012). Although no single special factor has been reported for breast cancer many useful clinicopathological factors have been identified. Treatment of breast cancer can be evaluated with the help of clinically predictive and prognostic factors. An ideal prognostic factor should be capable of predicting the development of metastases