Histopathological Characteristics of Breast Carcinoma in a Tertiary Health Facility in Subsaharan Africa

Background: Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in the female and histopathologic features beside the molecular subtype is a very useful prognostic factor in the clinical management of breast cancer patients. The most useful histopathological prognostic factors include tumour size. Lymph node involvement, lymphovascular invasion and grade of the cancer, Aims and Objective: The study aim to describe the histopathological characteristics and social demographic variables of breast carcinoma at University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Calabar. Method: This is a retrospective descriptive study of histopathologic characteristics of breast carcinoma in UCTH. The records of cases diagnosed as breast cancer in a five year period (2010-2014) in the department of Histopathology. The demographic variables and the histopathologic characteristics like the side tumour is located, tumour site, tumour size, histologic types, histologic subtypes, histologic grade, stage and number of lymph nodes involved are collated and analyzed. The findings were presented in tables and charts and statistical significance of variables tested. Result: One hundred and forty seven (147) cases of breast cancer samples were analysed. The mean age at diagnosis was 46.31+/-12.75 years old. The age ranged from 21-80 years old, the modal and median ages were 40 and 45 years respectively. Ninety eight percent (98%) were female and 2.0% male. All the males had invasive ductal carcinoma not otherwise specified. The right breast was involved in 54.42%of cases, left was 45.58% of cases and none had bilateral breast cancer. Mastectomy was the surgical treatment for 63.95% and lumpectomy in 36.05% of cases. Ninety nine percent (99%) were ductal carcinoma while lobular carcinoma was 1%. Invasive ductal carcinoma not otherwise specified (92.52%) was the commonest histologic subtype while special types was only a minor fraction of 3.40%. The majority (75.51%) has a tumour size of 2-5cm and moderately differentiated grade 2 was the most common accounting for 48.57%. Conclusion: Breast cancer is commoner in the premenopausal women. Invasive ductal carcinoma not otherwise specified is the commonest histologic subtype, the special type accounted for only a small fraction. The moderately differentiated breast cancer is the commonest. Breast cancer is commonest in female while the male breast cancer is just a fraction. The majority of the cancer has size 2-5cm but larger tumour size is associated with breast cancer in the young less than 40 years.