Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Breast cancer incidence, mortality and mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) are associated with human development, 1990–2016: evidence from Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Breast Cancer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

To examine breast cancer burden in females using incidence, mortality and mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) and its association with human development.

Methods

We employ the data of breast cancer in females from the Global Burden of Disease 2016 study for the period 1990 to 2016 for 102 countries. Human development is measured using the human development index (HDI). 5-year survival rate of breast cancer is proxied using the mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR).

Findings

Globally, breast cancer has claimed 535341 female lives and 1.7 million incident cases had surfaced in 2016. High incidence rates were observed in very high HDI countries led by the Netherlands (117.2/100,000), whereas the mortality rate was high in low/medium HDI countries led by Afghanistan (35.4/100,000). Breast cancer incidence has more than doubled in 60/102 countries, whereas deaths have doubled in 43/102 countries. Globally, breast cancer MIR decreased from 0.41 to 0.32 over 1990–2016 and displayed negative gradient with HDI (r = − 0.87), indicating a low 5-year survival in less developed countries.

Conclusion

Heterogeneity in breast cancer burden, as per human development, and increasing breast cancer incidence and low survival rates, indicated by MIR, call for broader human development, improving breast cancer awareness, and cost-effective screening and treatment in less developed countries.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Data source: MIR was calculated by the author using crude mortality and incidence data of female breast cancer from the GBD 2016 study, and HDI data (and its components) was procured from the UNDP database

Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Data source: MIR is calculated by the author using crude mortality and incidence data, HDI data is procured from the UNDP database and UHC data is procured from the WDI database of World Bank which in turn was compiled from Hogan et al. [30]. OOP data is also from the WDI database of World Bank

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1000 cases are chosen so as to exclude countries with too few cancer cases as it may lead to too large or too small MIR values which may not truly reflect countries’ development status and may distort main conclusions of the paper.

  2. Country-specific HDI values and component-wise values in 2015 are presented in Table 3 of the “Appendix”.

  3. Annual percentage change of incidence, mortality, ASIR, ASMR and MIR over the period 1990 to 2016 for different HDI groupings is shown in Fig. 5 of the “Appendix”.

  4. National Cancer Screening Program in Georgia also one of the successful screening program which resulted in downstaging of breast cancer and improved survival rate. Source: http://www.gnsc.ge/?act=page&id=44&lang=en (Accessed 18 Oct 2018).

References

  1. GBD 2016 Cause of Death Collaborators. Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet. 2016;390(10100):1151–210.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Global Burden of Disease Cancer Collaborators. Global, regional, and national cancer incidence, mortality, years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life-years for 29 cancer groups, 1990–2016. a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. JAMA Oncol. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.2706.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Sankaranarayanan R, Swaminathan R, Brenner H, Chen K, Chia KS, Chen JG, et al. Cancer survival in Africa, Asia, and Central America: a population-based study. Lancet Oncol. 2010;11(2):165–73.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Vostakolaei F, Karim-Kos HE, Janssen-Heijnen ML, Visser O, Verbeek AL, Kiemeney LA. The validity of the mortality to incidence ratio as a proxy for site-specific cancer survival. Eur J Public Health. 2010;21(5):573–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Chen SL, Wang SC, Ho CJ, Kao YL, Hsieh TY, Chen WJ, et al. Prostate cancer mortality-to-incidence ratios are associated with cancer care disparities in 35 countries. Sci Rep. 2017;7:40003.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Wang SC, Sung WW, Kao YL, Hsieh TY, Chen WJ, Chen SL, et al. The gender difference and mortality-to-incidence ratio relate to health care disparities in bladder cancer: National estimates from 33 countries. Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):4360.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Tsai MC, Wang CC, Lee HL, Peng CM, Yang TW, Chen HY, et al. Health disparities are associated with gastric cancer mortality-to-incidence ratios in 57 countries. World J Gastroenterol. 2017;23(44):7881.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Wang CC, Tsai MC, Peng CM, Lee HL, Chen HY, Yang TW, et al. Favorable liver cancer mortality-to-incidence ratios of countries with high health expenditure. Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2017;29(12):1397–401.

  9. Sunkara V, Hebert JR. The colorectal cancer mortality-to-incidence ratio as an indicator of global cancer screening and care. Cancer. 2015;121(10):1563–9.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. Ginsburg O, Bray F, Coleman MP, Vanderpuye V, Eniu A, Kotha SR, et al. The global burden of women’s cancers: a grand challenge in global health. Lancet. 2017;389(10071):847–60.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Foreman KJ, Lozano R, Lopez AD, Murray CJ. Modeling causes of death: an integrated approach using CODEm. Popul Health Metr. 2012;10(1):1.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network. Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. (GBD 2016). 2017. Results. Seattle, United States: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool. Accessed 5 July 2018.

  13. United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Human Development Database. 2018. http://hdr.undp.org/en/data#. Accessed 30 June 2018 and 1 July 2018.

  14. Porter P. “Westernizing” women’s risks? Breast cancer in lower-income countries. N Engl J Med. 2008;358(3):213–6.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Arnold M, Pandeya N, Byrnes G, Renehan AG, Stevens GA, Ezzati M, et al. Global burden of cancer attributable to high body-mass index in 2012: a population-based study. Lancet Oncol. 2015;16(1):36–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Park SK, Kim Y, Kang D, et al. Risk factors and control strategies for the rapidly rising rate of breast cancer in Korea. J Breast Cancer. 2011;14:79–87.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  17. Hortobagyi GN, de la Garza Salazar J, Pritchard K, Amadori D, Haidinger R, Hudis CA, et al. The global breast cancer burden: variations in epidemiology and survival. Clin Breast Cancer. 2005;6(5):391–401.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Jemal A, Siegel R, Ward E, Murray T, Xu J, Smigal C, et al. Cancer statistics, 2006. CA Cancer J Clin. 2006;56(2):106–30.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. WHO Guide for effective programmes; cancer control: knowledge into action; module 3: early detection (free full text). 2018. http://www.who.int/cancer/publications/cancer_control_detection/en/. Accessed 6 Aug 2018.

  20. Jørgensen KJ, Zahl PH, Gøtzsche PC. Overdiagnosis in organised mammography screening in Denmark. A comparative study. BMC Womens Health. 2009;9(1):36.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  21. Gøtzsche PC, Nielsen M. Screening for breast cancer with mammography. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD001877.pub3.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Jørgensen KJ, Zahl PH, Gøtzsche PC. Breast cancer mortality in organised mammography screening in Denmark: comparative study. BMJ. 2010;340:c1241.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  23. Bleyer A, Welch HG. Effect of three decades of screening mammography on breast-cancer incidence. N Engl J Med. 2012;367(21):1998–2005.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Kalager M, Adami HO, Bretthauer M, Tamimi RM. Overdiagnosis of invasive breast cancer due to mammography screening: results from the Norwegian screening program. Ann Intern Med. 2012;156(7):491–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Corbex M, Burton R, Sancho-Garnier H. Breast cancer early detection methods for low and middle-income countries, a review of the evidence. Breast. 2012;21(4):428–34.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Sankaranarayanan R, Ramadas K, Thara S, Muwonge R, Prabhakar J, Augustine P, Venugopal M, Anju G, Mathew BS. Clinical breast examination: preliminary results from a cluster randomized controlled trial in India. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2011;103(19):1476–80.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Luthar UK. Clinical downstaging of cancer of the uterine cervix e an interim strategy for developing countries. In: Proceedings of the UICC congress. 1994.

  28. Devi BCR, Tang TS, Corbex M. Reducing by half the percentage of late-stage presentation for breast and cervix cancer over 4 years: a pilot study of clinical downstaging in Sarawak, Malaysia. Ann Onc. 2007;18(7):1172–6.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. World Bank Database. 2018. WDI data. http://databank.worldbank.org/data. Accessed 25 July 2018.

  30. Hogan DR, Stevens GA, Hosseinpoor AR, Boerma T. Monitoring universal health coverage within the Sustainable Development Goals: development and baseline data for an index of essential health services. Lancet Glob Health. 2018;6(2):e152–68.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University School of Management and Entrepreneurship, Delhi Technological University, Vivek Vihar-Phase II, Delhi, 110095, India

    Rajesh Sharma

Authors
  1. Rajesh Sharma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rajesh Sharma.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors of the paper declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix

Appendix

See Figs. 5 and 6 and Tables 2 and 3.

Fig. 5
figure 5

HDI groupwise annual percentage change of breast cancer burden, 1990–2016. ASIR age-standardised incidence rate, ASMR age-standardised mortality rate, MIR mortality-to-incidence ratio. Countries were categorised into four groups as per HDI value in 2015: very high (HDI > 0.800), high (0.700 < HDI < 0.799), medium (0.550 < HDI < 0.669) and low (HDI < 0.550)

Full size image
Fig. 6
figure 6

HDI category-wise temporal movement of mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR), 1990–2016. Data pertains to aggregate of data for low HDI (15) countries, medium HDI (18) countries, high HDI (31) countries and very high HDI (36) countries for the period 1990 to 2016 and is procured from Global Burden of Disease study 2016. Countries were categorised into four groups as per HDI value in 2015: very high (HDI > 0.800), high (0.700 < HDI < 0.799), medium (0.550 < HDI < 0.669) and low (HDI < 0.550)

Full size image
Table 2 Total percentage change and annual percentage change (APC) of mortality, incidence, ASIR, ASMR and MIR of all countries over 1990–2016
Full size table
Table 3 Country-wise human development index and its components in 2015
Full size table

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sharma, R. Breast cancer incidence, mortality and mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) are associated with human development, 1990–2016: evidence from Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Breast Cancer 26, 428–445 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12282-018-00941-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12282-018-00941-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation