Correlation Between the Incidence of Breast Cancer and the Human Development Index

Introduction: Breast cancer is the second most frequent type in the world and is the most common among women. The increase in its incidence has been a cause of constant and growing concern, as the incidence rates vary greatly according to the degree of socio-economic development. Currently, the genesis of breast cancer and its risk factors have been receiving an important consideration, since these factors are crucial when thinking about its prevention. As developing countries are constantly growing, there is a change in their lifestyle habits, such as fat and alcohol intake, smoking, exposure to oral contraceptives, changes in procreation and breastfeeding patterns, birth profile. With this change, they also accumulate more diseases associated with this culture, among them breast cancer. Objective: to analyze a possible relationship between HDI and the incidence of breast cancer worldwide. Methods: The incidence of breast cancer in 164 countries was obtained from GLOBOCAN, derived from population-based cancer records. A list of human development index of the same 164 countries was obtained from the United Nations Human Development Report. Nonlinear regression models were obtained using the Levenberg-Marquardt estimation method. Results and Conclusions: Of the 164 countries evaluated, 146 were in the range between 10 and -10 of predicted variation, which were between the fifth and 95th percentile values. The 18 countries whose incidences of CM were found to deviate outside this range (nine above and below, respectively) were considered as discrepant observations. Once the data from countries with discrepant observations were removed, nonlinear regression analysis of the group of 146 remaining countries was obtained using the Levenberg-Marquardt estimation method, identifying a value of “R2” at 0.8343, confirming the high reliability of the proposed mathematical model. This result suggests the hypothesis that the factors included in the calculation of the Human Development Index are strongly related to those involved in the population incidence of breast cancer. The application of this model also suggested the existence of a group of countries that apparently present protective factors or that favor the onset of breast cancer