Rate of Breast Cancer in Italy Significantly Higher Than Previousl...( PHILADELPHIA July 2 -- A new analysi...),Health

PHILADELPHIA, July 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new analysis of the incidence of breast cancer in Italy per 100,000 women between the ages of 0 to 84 from 2000 to 2005 shows a 72 percent spike above official estimates issued by the Ministry of Health, with the sharpest uptick of +28.6 percent found in the youngest group studied (ages 25 to 44).

The new results, which rely on hospitalization databases that track major breast surgeries rather than official estimations computed using statistical models, appear in The Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research.

"Our findings show that women under 45 who are not currently enrolled in secondary prevention programs, should be considered for receiving regular mammograms," says Prisco Piscitelli, Ph.D., of the CROM (Cancer Research Center) in Mercogliano, Italy, one of the study's authors. "The results also strongly suggests that measures for adopting primary preventative measures to investigate and eliminate dietary, behavioral and environmental causes of breast cancer, such as estrogen in food, hormone pills, smoking, dioxin and pollution."

The study was done by a multidisciplinary team of researchers (epidemiologists, oncologists, radiologists and surgeons) Antonio Giordano, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine and Director of the Center for Biotechnology at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and 'Chiara fama' Professor in the Department of Human Pathology & Oncology, University of Siena, Siena, Italy.

Overall, the incidence of breast cancer from 2000 to 2005 among all age groups was 26.5 percent higher than official estimations. The incidence of breast cancer per 100,000 women aged 0 to 84 years was 141.80 in the year 2000 and 160.85 in 2005, a 13.4 percent increase. This is 72 percent higher than that provided by official estimations of the Ministry of Health (93
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