Are Syrian refugee breast cancer patients diagnosed at advanced stage and do they have treatment delays?

Abstract

Aim: To compare the clinicopathological features and time to reach treatment of patients with breast cancer among Syrian refugees (SR) and Turkish citizens (TC). Methods: Retrospective data from 2014 to 2021 were extracted from the hospital database. Student’s t-test, Mann–Whitney U test and χ2 test were used to compare the two groups. Results: Data of 88 SR and 402 TC patients were analyzed. The mean age was 45 years for SRs and 50 years for TCs. Breast cancer subtypes were similar in both groups. The de novo metastatic ratio was 23% in SRs and 21.3% in TCs and the time to reach treatment was similar between the two groups. Conclusion: Provided the absence of any obstacle in the healthcare system, SRs are diagnosed and treated like the citizens of their host nation.

Tweetable abstract

Patients with breast cancer among Syrian refugees are younger but are not diagnosed and treated later than Turkish citizens. #Syrian #refugees #TreatmentDelay #BreastCancer

Keywords::

• breast cancer
• neoadjuvant
• stage
• Syrian refugees
• treatment delay

Author contributions

Y Sezgin: concept design, literature search. O Karhan and Ş Secmeler: data collection, processing and analysis. H Yerlikaya and S Ileri: supervision, drafting and critical review. All the authors reviewed the manuscript and wrote the main manuscript text.

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to Y Deniz for English grammar check.

Financial competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.