Breast Cancer in Fallujah District (Iraq), A Comparative Pathological Study

Abstract

Background: The most common cancer in the world is breast cancer. For Iraq, this tumor is the number one
cancer in women, but unfortunately there is a dearth of academic studies covering this tumor,despite some
studies have indicated a general increase in cancer in Iraq, especially in Fallujah, and these studies attributed
the reason to the possible use of carcinogenic weapons in repeated wars in this region.
The aim of this study is to determine the average age of breast cancer patients at diagnosis, and also the type,
side, pathological stage and grade of tumor, in order to do statistical assessment with different studies in the
Arab region and the world as well as the other Iraqi region.
Materials and Method: This is a retrospective descriptive study of breast cancer, cases of breast cancer
were collected over two periods, the first extended from 1st February 2011 to 30 December 2014, and the
second between 1st June 2017 and 31 October 2019, and 342cases had been recorded in this study.
Results: The average female-age at time of diagnosis: 47.59 (SD: 13.11),cases with age <50 y: 66.4%,patients
inearly TNM stage (pT0 & pT1 categories) forming only 4.68%. concerning the types of tumor: infiltrative
ductal carcinoma of no special type: 86.26%, medullary type: 7.02% mucinous: 2.05 & invasive lobular:
4.09%, malignant phyllodes: 0.29%, and metaplastic carcinoma:0.29%. Left (185)/Right (157) = 1.157 and
the percent of both sides involvement was 2.6%.
Conclusion: The average age of breast cancer in Fallujah is earlier than other Arab and Western countries
and even in certain areas of Iraq, and it comes with late stage and higher grade.