Comparison of Clinical, Radiological and Pathological T&N Staging and to Evaluate the Health Care Provider Delay in Cases of Malignant Breast Lump at a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Breast cancer is the most common sitespecific cancer and is the leading cause of death from cancer in women. Commonest symptom with which a lady presents in OPDs with breast related issue is breast lump. A triple assessment helps in early diagnosis and planning early treatment, as well as alleviates unnecessary anxiety. Delayed presentation of Ca Breast of 3 months or more is associated with lower survival rates. Hence, to reduce mortality& morbidity, early diagnosis, better screening& treatment are warranted. Hence, the aim of the study was comparison of clinical, radiological and pathological �T�& �N� staging and to evaluate the health care provider delay in cases of malignant breast lump at a tertiary Care teaching hospital. We found among the patients presenting with breast lump, benign breast disease was most common. Radiological and pathological staging are more similar as compared to clinical staging and clinical examination alone is not sufficient to accurately stage the disease. Triple assessment is must. The bottleneck in overall delay was delayed 1st visit, as most of the patients did not consider lump insignificant. Hence, more breast cancer awareness is required in general population to reduce the patient delay. Average time till definitive management in case of malignant lumps was approximately one month.