Epidemiology of Gynaecological and Breast Cancers: Incidence, Survival, and Mental Health

Epidemiology of Gynaecological and Breast Cancers: Incidence, Survival, and Mental Health

Matthias Kalder, Karel Kostev
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 21
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4213-2.ch001
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Abstract

This chapter describes the incidences of breast cancer, genital organ cancer, in particular cervical cancer and ovarian cancer, including the five-year survival rates among women with these cancer diagnoses. Additionally, these incidences will be presented from different countries of the world. The absolute five-year survival rate indicates how many cancer patients are still alive at a certain point after diagnosis. Moreover, the age structure of women with cancer in Germany is shown. Additionally, anxiety and depression are common comorbidities of cancer and will serve in this chapter to give an example of applied epidemiology. These two conditions result from the uncertain course of the cancer disease, reduced life expectancy, and profound life changes. The impact of breast cancer or genital organ cancer on mental health is described, and it is shown which psychiatric diagnoses and symptoms potentially will occur during the course of the cancer disease.
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Introduction

Epidemiology is concerned with the distribution of diseases, physiological variables, and social sequelae in human populations and the factors that influence this distribution. The most important measures in descriptive epidemiology include prevalence and incidence.

Prevalence describes the frequency with which people in the population studied suffer from a particular disease. For example, if the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer in a country is divided by the number of women living in that country, the result is the prevalence of breast cancer.

Incidence describes the frequency with which people in the population under investigation are newly diagnosed with a particular disease. Unlike prevalence, the incidence is not presented as a percentage, but as the number of new cases in the observation period divided by the number of person-years at risk. “Number of person-years at risk” means the sum of observation years for the population at risk. “Population at risk” refers to people in the population examined who are not yet affected by the disease at the beginning of the observation period but may develop it over time. The incidence rate is the most common epidemiological measure used for cancer. The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) investigates current incidence rates for various cancers and publishes them on its website (www.wcrf.org).

Another very important measure in cancer epidemiology is the five-year survival rate. For many types of cancer, patients who have survived the first five years after diagnosis have a good chance of a permanent cure, as relapses are usually less likely after this period. A distinction is made between the absolute and relative five-year survival rates. The absolute five-year survival rate indicates how many cancer patients are still alive at a certain point after diagnosis. To calculate the relative survival rate, the absolute survival rate of cancer patients is divided by the expected survival rate in the general population.

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