Full blood count pattern of pre-chemotherapy breast cancer patients in Lagos, Nigeria

Background: Full blood count has been shown to predict disease severity and mortality risk in cancer patients. This study aimed to highlight the degree of derangements of full blood count parameters and provide mean values in pre-chemotherapy breast cancer patients compared with apparently normal control subjects. Methods: This was an unmatched case-control study among breast cancer patients attending Oncology clinic of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja and the nurses of the institution as control. A total of 4.5 mls of blood was collected from each participant into EDTA bottle for full blood count analysis, done on the same day of collection. Results: A total of 100 histologically diagnosed, consenting, pre-chemotherapy patients of the clinic (cases) and 50 nurses of the institution as controls were studied. Anemia was found in 58%, 43% and 20% of cases compared with 38%, 36% and 2% of controls using PCV < 36%, 30-36% and 30%, respectively. The mean MCV, MCH, MCHC (82.62±7.48 fl, 26.01±2.78 pg, 30.73±4.06 g/l respectively) of cases were lower than the controls (85.36±5.74 fl, 27.24±1.90 pg, 31.81±0.8 g/l, respectively and RDW of cases (15.61±3.53) was higher than the control (14.24±0.75). The mean WBC counts, neutrophil and lymphocyte percentages of cases (6.96±7.22, 54.75±13.1% and 38.19±12.70%, respectively) were higher than the controls (5.47±1.57, 44.39±8.78% and 8.82±15.97%, respectively). The mean platelet count of cases 291.51±103.38 was also higher than the controls (222.82±57.62). Conclusion: Breast cancer patients presented with deranged full blood count pattern, consequent to the disease compared with the controls.