Breast cancer accounts for 22.7% of cancer diagnoses among women in Iraq and remains one of the country’s leading causes of cancer-related deaths, according to 2026 Health Ministry data.

Figures presented at Cihan University-Erbil earlier this month recorded 9,043 breast cancer cases in Iraq in 2026, accounting for 19.5% of the 46,682 cancer cases registered nationwide. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization (WHO), estimated 7,461 new breast cancer cases and 3,366 deaths from the disease over the same period.

The 3.2-percentage-point difference between the figures may seem small, but it matters when measuring the scale of a disease and planning healthcare services. For oncological surgeon Dr. Salam Musa, it points to a deeper problem: Iraq lacks a comprehensive cancer registry.