A CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL STUDY OF BREAST CARCINOMA AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Background and Objectives: Breast carcinoma is the most common cancer and the leading cause of death in females all over the world. In most of developing countries including Pakistan the incidence is on the increase. Although a number of studies have been conducted in Pakistan, adequate statistics about demographic and epidemiologic features of breast carcinoma are not available. The present study was designed to see the frequency, age, gender and morphological features of breast carcinoma in a tertiary care hospital. Methods: It was a retrospective study of breast biopsies from all patients reported from January 2009 to December, 2011 at Department of Pathology FJMU, Lahore. All the available demographic and tumor related data was collected from the files of histopathology section and analyzed. Patients were divided into five age groups with an interval of ten years between each group. Results: Out of 727 breast biopsies, 721 specimens were from females and 6 from male patients. Breast carcinoma was diagnosed in 263 (36.17%), Sarcoma in 1 (0.14%), benign tumors in 265 (36.5%) and non-neoplastic lesions in 198 (27.23%) cases. Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) was the commonest subtypes seen in 251 (95.44%), followed by mucinous carcinoma (1.90%) and invasive lobular carcinoma (1.14%). All the malignant tumors were seen in female patients. Males were diagnosed to have benign lesions only. The mean age of patients with IDC was 46 years. Maximum numbers of patients with IDC were between 40 – 49 years of age. Grade II tumors were found in majority of the cases (99.5%). Axillary lymph node metastases were present in 70.96% patients. Tumor size of more than 2.5 cm was found in 75% cases. Conclusion: The breast carcinoma was quite common in our females. It occurred at a younger age as compared to western population. IDC was the commonest subtype. Most of the tumors were aggressive (grade II) and diagnosed at advanced stage with nodal metastases.