Seasonal variation in breast cancer incidence. Circumstantial or default event?

It has been previously suggested that seasonality in the detection of breast cancer is mostly seen in countries with distinct climatic variations. Patient characteristics and delays have been implicated in the etiology of peak presentation. Seasonality has been more marked in premenopausal women, while delays have been attributed to both patients and health care systems. Patients: A total of 1,411 women who presented with breast cancer to our department were analyzed according to their age, menopausal status, site, stage, grade, ER and PR status, c-erb-2 and Ki-67 (412) during the year. Results: The seasonal variation was statistically significant, but no statistically significant differences were established between corresponding subgroups. Conclusion: The seasonal variation most probably reflects temporal, psychosocial and behavioral patterns in the Greek female population. Since we do not have the ability to recognize the actual onset of any cancer and then correlate it with various different independent factors we can not correlate its influence on survival or biological marker manifestations.

Seasonal variation; Breast cancer

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