• Elif Atag, Serkan Gokcay, Eda Tanrikulu Simsek, Fatih Aslan, Abdullah Evren Yetisir, and Murat Sari.
• Department of Medical Oncology, Haydarpasa Numune Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Arch Iran Med. 2023 Jan 1; 26 (1): 293529-35.

BackgroundCancer is a significant health problem for refugees and host countries. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among refugees. The subject of our study is to examine the clinical and pathological features of Syrian refugees with breast cancer and compare them with Turkish patients with breast cancer.MethodsData of patients with breast cancer between January 2018 and December 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. The clinical and histological features, treatment modalities and overall survival were collected and analyzed.ResultsA total number of 338 women with breast cancer were included in this study. Ninety-nine of the 338 (29.3%) patients were Syrian refugees and 239 patients (70.7%) were Turkish. The median follow-up time was significantly lower in Syrian patients (P<0.001). Median OS was 146 months in Turkish and 116 months in Syrian group (P=0.022). Independent risk factors associated with long survival were receiving adjuvant chemotherapy (HR 0.465; 95% CI 0.234-0.926; P=0.029), adjuvant radiotherapy (HR 0.372 95% CI 0.182-0.758; P=0.007), and adjuvant hormonotherapy (HR 0.367; 95% CI 0.201-0.669; P=0.001). The rates of receiving adjuvant chemotherapy, adjuvant radiotherapy, and adjuvant hormonal therapy were significantly lower in the Syrian group (P=0.023, P=0.005, P=0.002, respectively).ConclusionSyrian refugees with breast cancer are more likely to receive suboptimal treatments. They have inferior survival compared to local patients. Our findings highlight the need for the provision of cancer therapy in such vulnerable populations. We suggest that more attention should be paid to breast cancer, as it is the most common cancer among refugees.© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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