Clinicopathological Analysis of Breast Lump in Women above Forty Years: Tertiary Hospital, Northern Kerala, India

This is a cross sectional study that included 384 patients of age above 40 years with history of breast lump. Data for the study was collected from the patients reporting to Department of General Surgery, Government Medical College, Kannur for a period from July 2016 to September 2017. A structured case proforma was used to enter the clinical history, physical examination and the pathological fine needle aspiration findings. 384 women above forty years with breast lump were studied, majority of them were belonging to the peri-menopausal age group followed by post-menopausal age group. 234 benign breast diseases and 150 malignancies were diagnosed. The probability of a marginally higher number of benign breast diseases could possibly be attributed to the cumulative summarization of the myriad presentation of benign conditions as in comparison to the sole presentation of malignancy in 150 cases. Of the 98.7% women presented with lump in the breast, 62.76% had associated pain in the breast. Hence, breast lump was the most common presentation in our study followed by mastalgia. 95.3% of carcinoma breast cases were seen in upper outer quadrant. Rest of the pathological conditions had an equivocal distribution of lumps across various quadrants. Restricted mobility was pathognomic of malignancy. Axillary lymph node enlargement was majorly seen in inflammatory conditions and carcinoma breast. The above study strongly emphasizes on the clinical acuity and skillful examination of breast diseases which will aid in the right route of cost effective investigative procedures and a definitive diagnosis.