BRCA1 Mutations in Northeastern Iranian Breast Cancer Families

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy in women and the leading cause of cancer death in females worldwide, accounting for 23% (1.38 million) of total new cancer cases and 14% (458,400) of the total cancer deaths in 2008. In the USA, the estimated number of new cases of BC in 2012 was 226,870, of which 39,510 resulted in death (American Cancer Society, 2012). The incidence rates of breast cancer vary among geographic locales with North America and Europe considered high risk areas, and Asia and Africa indicated as low risk areas (Ferlay et al., 2010). About half the BC cases and 60% of the deaths are estimated to occur in economically developing countries. Iran constitutes a low risk region for BC. However, Iran is located in the Middle part of Asia, which has the highest incidence of BC among women in the region, generally followed by gastric, esophageal and cervical lesions (Moore et al., 2010). Among Iranian women, BC is the fifth most common cause of death (Akbari et al., 2008) and ranked first among cancers diagnosed (Sadjadi et al., 2005; Mousavi et al., 2009), comprising 24.4% of all neoplasms