Descriptive epidemiological assessment of cancers of the breast, ovary and uterine corpus in Greater Bombay

An attempt has been made to make a descriptive epidemiological assessment of cancers of the breast, uterine corpus and ovary in Greater Bombay. The descriptive epidemiology has been discussed in relation to age and demographic and socio-economic composition of the population, utilising the recent 5 year data. The incidence of these cancers in Bombay has been compared with national and international findings. Time trend analysis of these cancers has also been discussed, using the data for the past 30 years. The basic data was collected by the Bombay Cancer Registry. A linear regression model based on the logarithms of the incidence rates was utilised for studying the time trends. In Bombay, during the period 1989-1993, 4,110 breast cancer cases were registered representing 11.2% of the total number of cancers seen and 23.5% of all cancers in females. The average A.A.R. for incidence and mortality of breast cancer was found to be 29.4 and 12.5 per 100,000 population respectively. During the same period 326 cases of uterine corpus cancers and 1,096 ovarian cancers were recorded in Bombay. Breast cancer is extremely rare in the premenarchal age. The age specific incidence is seen to vary for each of these cancers. The incidence is seen to be very high, of all the three cancers in the Parsis, when compared with the other religious groups. Breast and ovarian cancers were found to the highest in Gujratis, whereas, cancer of the uterine corpus was predominant in Marathi speaking women. The incidence of all the three cancers was found to be increasing with a rise in the educational level of the patients. This was found to be maximum for married women followed by the widows and is lowest in unmarried women. The trend of incidence data for all these three cancers in Greater Bombay, confirms the impression and parallel changes in age-adjusted incidence rate in the corresponding sites observed in other registries throughout of the world.