A systematic review and meta-analysis on incidence of prostate cancer in Iran

Background: Prostate cancer is a global health concern. In Iran, its epidemiology is not precisely recognized. We aimed to evaluate incidence of prostate cancer among Iranian populations. Methods: In this systematic review, we searched the databases PubMed, Web of Sciences, Scopus and Google Scholar for English studies and the databases Magiran, Scientific Information Database, IranMedex and IranDoc for Persian studies, using related keywords. The cross-sectional articles published from inception to 31 December 2018 were included. Meta-analysis was conducted on the collected data with STATA software using random effects model. Results: Out of 763 articles initially obtained, 9 articles were finally included after applying the predefined exclusion criteria. Analysis of 9 studies on the incidence of prostate cancer showed a crude rate of 7.1 per 100 000 population (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.6-8.6). Also, the pooled age-standardized incidence rate was 8.7 per 100 000 (95% CI: 6.7-10.4). Studies performed in the period 2004-2012 had significantly a higher pooled estimate of the crude incidence rate (9.2 per 100 000 [95% CI: 7.9-10.4]) compared with those conducted in the period 1996-2003 (4.5 per 100 000 [95% CI: 2.8-6.2]). This trend was also observed based on the age-standardized incidence rate (11 per 100 000 [95% CI: 9.4-12.5] versus 6.3 per 100 000 [95% CI: 4-8.5]). Conclusion: Despite low rate of prostate cancer occurrence in Iran, it is recommended that preventive measures be taken against this disease by health policy makers. Also, more epidemiological studies are needed to better find out the pattern of prostate cancer among Iranian populations.