Breast cancer in the Pirot district in the period from 1988 to 2017

Breast cancer is the most frequent malignant neoplasm in women, accounting for about 25% of all the malignancies and 15% of all fatalities in female population. The purpose of our work is to examine the incidence of breast cancer in the Pirot district in the period from 1998 to 2017. For examination, we used the histopathological reports from the Department of Pathology of the General Hospital in Pirot. The study covered 573 patients who were operated from the breast cancer in the period from 1998 to 2017. The number of patients who were ill, the time of the beginning of disease, the age of the patient at the time of diagnosis, gender and the histopathological type of tumor were analysed. The Student's T test was used to examine the statistical significance among the groups. Breast cancer was verified in 558 women (97.38%) and 15 men (2.62%). The average age of women with breast cancer at the time of diagnosis is 62 years, and the average age of men with the disease is 64 year. The highest incidence of breast cancer was recorded in 2017, with a statistically significant increase in the number of patients from 2007 to 2017. This paper discusses possible pathogenic factors that have influenced a significant increase in incidence of breast cancer in the Pirot district.