Breast cancer in Arabic women.

A case-control study of breast cancer was conducted in Cairo, Egypt and in Kuwait. This is the first such report from Arabic countries and the most significant finding is the animal incidence rate of 7.67 per 100,000 in Kuwaiti women, which ranks amongst the lowest thus far reported in the world. Factors which contribute to this low rate are a short period of active menstruation, low family history, first childbirth at very early age and most likely significant dietary factors. More than 45% of Egyptian women give birth to a child before the age of 20, with 56.5% of controls and 42.3% of patients (p less than 0.01). Many patients already have extensive disease at time of diagnosis as a result of considerable delay. However, this delay did not result in a high incidence of inflammatory breast carcinoma, such as has been reported in Tunisia.