Determination of breast cancer risk level in women 18 years of age or older

Abstract

Objective: Cancer is one of the most important causes of mortality in the world. In our country and in the world, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. In this study, we aimed to determine the risk factors of breast cancer in the population of women 18 years of age or older, and evaluate their sociodemographic features and their knowledge about the diagnostic methods wtih the risk factors we determined.

Methods: This research was counducted in Şişli Hamidiye Etfal Training and Research Hospital Family Medicine Clinic between 01.10.2018 – 31.12.2018. Sociodemographic features, a questionnaire about the diagnostic tools of breast cancer and “Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Form” were asked to the volunteers during a face-to-face interview. The data were analyzed with SPSS 15.0 software programme, level of significance was taken as p<0.05.

Results: Three hundred patients attended to our study. The average age was 40.3±15.3 (18-85). The mean breast cancer risk score was 146.5±63.9 (50-580). We found that, 91.3% (n=274) women had low risk, 8.7% (n=26) had high risk for breast cancer. We evaluated the relationship between breast cancer, sociodemographic features and clinical status of participants and found that there was a statistically significant relationship with body mass index, marial status, first menstruation age, family history of breast cancer and a personal history of cancer (p=0.014; p=0.007; p=0.01; p=0<001; p<0.001 respectively). Divorced patients had high risk for breast cancer. In addition, as age increased and first menstruation age decreased, the risk score decreased. The knowledge of the diagnostic methods of breast cancer among the age group of 18-29 was low but it was high in the age group of 41-50 (p=0.009). We found that among our participants, having high school education or higher, having a history of breast cancer in their family and having breast examination by a doctor correlated with significantly higher level of knowledge about diagnostic methods for breast cancer (p=0.03; p<0.012; p<0.001 respectively).

Conclusion: Age, first menstruation age, family history of breast cancer and personal history of cancer were identified as important risk factors that increase the risk of breast cancer in our study.