Breast Cancer Among Iraqi Women: Preliminary Findings From a Regional Comparative Breast Cancer Research Project

Breast cancer is the most frequent malignancy among women worldwide, accounting for 25% of all cancers, with an estimated 1.57 million new cases in 2012. 1 It is also the leading cause of female cancer-related deaths.Although substantial improvement in survival from this disease has been reported in high-resource countries, the risk continues to increase, yielding high mortality rates in middle-and low-income countries. 1,2Within the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), cancer is the fourth-ranked cause of death, after cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, and injuries. 3 According to WHO classification, the EMR comprises 21 member states in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.The included nations are Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq,