Human breast cancer: its genetics, biology and prognosis

Cancer is a major public health problem, being the second leading cause of death, after cardiovascular diseases1. Among women, breast cancer is the first neoplasm for incidence and the second for mortality all over the world. World-wide, an incidence of 1.4 million new cases and a mortality of 0.7 million (in both males and females) are expected in year 20121. Breast cancer incidence and mortality rates strongly vary all around the world2. A woman’s lifetime risk of developing the disease is 1 in 8 in the United States as well as in the Netherlands3. More than twothirds of cases of breast cancer in 2010 were in women aged 50 years and older, most of which were in developed countries. For women aged 15–49 years, twice as many breast cancer cases were registered in developing countries than in developed countries. An increase in the number of cases in all regions during the past three decades has been registered, but this increase is more prominent in the Middle East, South Asia, South-East Asia, and Central Latin America. This could be partly due to the transition process of these countries toward a western life-style and/or improvement in diagnosis. In North America, Western Europe, and Southern Latin America the increase in breast cancer is lower than the global average. On average, the number of new cases of breast cancer increases, but a part of the recorded increase is because of the global increase of the population.

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