Disease burden of breast cancer in Hong Kong: an exploration of trends for screening policy and resource allocation.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy and the leading cause of cancer-related death in women, accounting for 10% of new malignancies worldwide annually, and ~22% of all female malignancies.1 In Hong Kong, breast cancer is the most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women, with an age-standardised incidence and mortality of 61.0 and 9.1 per 100 000 in 2011, respectively.2 The incidence in Hong Kong is rising and exceeding all other East Asian populations except Singapore.1 Nonetheless, the death rate in Hong Kong has been stable over the past three decades.2 Age-period-cohort (APC) models have been used to examine trends in the incidence and mortality over time as well as different biological and environmental causes of cancer.3 Hong Kong has a history of rapid economic transitions over the past 60 years. Within two to three generations, Hong Kong has transformed from a third-world economy to a major financial centre. Socio-economic development is often followed by improved living standard and clinical interventions that are expected to affect the incidence and mortality of breast cancer. The economic and socio-cultural context of Hong Kong serves as a natural testing ground to examine how contextual history is related to the disease burden associated with breast cancer in a Chinese population. During the 1990s, progress in early detection Hong Kong Med J 2016;22(Suppl 6):S4-7 HHSRF project number: 10111031