Incidence of Non-melanoma Eyelid Malignancies in Bulgaria (2000-2015)

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Malignant eyelid tumours are the most common malignancies in ophthalmic practice. We report here the incidence of non-melanoma eyelid malignancies in Bulgaria, for the period 2000–2015.

Methods: All cases coded with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code C 44.1, received from the Bulgarian National Cancer Registry, were used for estimating crude incidence rates by age and sex. In addition, directly age standardized incidence rates for non-melanoma eyelid malignancies are presented based on the European Standard population (year 2013) for Bulgaria and the region of Varna.

Results: Over the 16-year period there were 3,046 cases in total, of which 1,457 (47.8%) were among men. The age standardized rate (ASR) of non-melanoma eyelid malignancies in men was 2.9 per 100,000 (95% CI 2.79–3.11), in women it was 2.4 per 100,000 (95% CI 2.30–2.54), and the mean ASR was 2.6 per 100,000 (95% CI 2.53–2.73) for both sexes during the period. The ASR increased for women and for both sexes combined.

The risk of eyelid malignancies was higher for men than for women with RR of 1.21 (95% CI 1.08–1.41) during the whole period. The risk was higher in women up to the age of 55 and over 55 years it was higher in men.

Conclusion: We report results for the incidence of eyelid non-melanoma malignancies in a south-eastern European country, Bulgaria. They are comparable with earlier reports from other European countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Incidence
• eyelid tumour
• Bulgaria