Genetic Epidemiology of Breast Cancer in Mauritius

Provider Institution: UOM
Principal Investigator: Dr G Khittoo
Date of completion: N/A
Report Available upon request.

Executive Summary

Despite the significant advances and ground breaking discoveries witnessed over the past three decades, breast cancer remains a major challenge facing public health today.Indeed, an impressive number of epidemiological studies conducted worldwide confirm that breast cancer, with its intricate societal and medical ramifications, is a complex problem which unfortunately is not being satisfactory curbed. Breast cancer is the third most frequent cancer in the world after lung and stomach cancers. It is by far the most important cancer in women reaching up to 21% of all new cancers affecting women worldwide. This means that a woman living in developed countries has a lifetime risk of about 6.7% compared to 2.2% the lifetime risk to get breast cancer in developing countries. Examination of the world map shows that the countries of highest risk for breast cancer are North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Asia and Africa for the moment represent zones of lowest risks.It would appear that the difficult situation prevailing with breast cancer is also true for many other types of cancers, making it very difficult to assess the full impact of the efforts of health care givers in the fight against cancer.

This dismal situation was further confirmed by a recent from the World Health Organization which stressed the fact that by year 2020, with the rapidly ageing populations in most countries, there will be 20 million new cancer cases each year. Faced with this colossal problem the WHO advocates a global strategy that would reduce the global incidence, morbidity from cancer.