Medical and statistical analysis of incidence, mortality, and timeliness of breast cancer diagnosis in Ukraine

Annotation. Breast cancer (BC) is an urgent public health problem in Ukraine, ranking first in the structure of the incidence of malignant neoplasms and mortality among the female population. The aim of the study was to analyze the incidence, mortality, and timeliness of BC diagnosis in Ukraine and its regions in the dynamics for 2014-2022 to substantiate the possibilities of improving secondary prevention of breast cancer. The study used the methods of statistical grouping, generalization, comparison, correlation, graphical, dynamic, and spatial analysis to analyze the data of the National Cancer Registry of Ukraine, the National Health Service and the International Agency for Research on Cancer/WHO. It has been discovered that in Ukraine, more than 14 thousand women are diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time in their lives every year, almost 5 thousand die from this cause, and the number of women with breast cancer is more than 167 thousand. The primary incidence of breast cancer tends to increase, and there is a pronounced regional variation in rates. The age-standardized incidence rates of breast cancer in Ukraine are significantly lower than in the European region, but mortality rates are close to European ones, which is caused by insufficient treatment effectiveness due to delayed diagnosis of breast cancer in Ukraine. It is shown that Ukraine has significant reserves for improving the system of timely breast cancer detection. Today, less than a third of breast cancer cases are detected during medical examinations and there is a tendency to decrease this indicator (from 50.0% in 2014 to 28.8% in 2022). This situation is one of the reasons for the high rate of breast cancer neglect, which increased from 20.2% in 2014 to 29.7% in 2022. An extremely low level of coverage of women in target groups with screening mammography examinations (3.7%) included in the program of medical guarantees, as well as an unsatisfactory level of health awareness and activity of women, which is evidenced by a low rate (17.26%) of mammography examinations by women in case of referral to this study, was established. Improving the system of secondary prevention of breast cancer requires increasing the activity of primary health care physicians in referring target groups of women for screening mammography, as well as expanding educational work among women and forming a conscious attitude to their health and understanding the importance of regular mammography for the timely detection of breast cancer.