Prevalence of Histological Characteristics of Breast Cancer in Rwanda in Relation to Age and Tumor Stages

Abstract

Breast cancer is a complex disease, and it is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality among women worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the clinical characteristics and tumor profiles of breast cancer are still unknown. In the present study we aimed to determine breast tumor profiles of the Rwandan patients in relation to age and tumor stages. We compare our findings to related results from other sub-Saharan Africa studies. Data on age at diagnosis, tumor stage, and hormonal profiles of 138 patients diagnosed between January 2015 and December 2018 were retrospectively retrieved from electronic medical records at three referral hospitals in Rwanda. We compared our results to related findings reported in other Sub-Saharan African countries. All statistical analyses were done using SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA, version 20 and R software languages. The mean age at diagnosis was 49.7 years (SD = 13) and ranged from 17 to 86 years. The majority of patients (57.2%) were diagnosed before 50 years of age compared with 42.8% aged > 50 years. Tumor stage III was the commonest accounting for 62% followed by stage II with 24.8%. The distribution of breast tumor subtypes was ER−

Is CD 44 really a marker of breast cancer metastasis or is nefarious in its nature

“…N0 consisted of 308 patients (58.3%), the N1 consisted of 164 (31.1%) patients, the N2 consisted of 35 (6.6 %) patients, and the N3 consisted of 2 (4.0%) patients. 13 In our study, 27.0% of the cases were in stage IIIB disease cases followed by stage IIIA in 23.6%, stage IIIC in 10.1%, stage IIB in 22.5%, stage IIA in 9.0%, stage IA in 5.6% and IB in 2.2% cases. Vijaya et al in 2020 found 53.1% cases of IIIA and 25% in IIIC followed by IIIB in 9.3%, IIA in 4.6%, IIB in 4.6% and IB in 3.1% cases.…”

“…12 Uyisenga et al in 2020 observed bilateral breast cancer in some patients. 13 Majority of the cases of breast carcinoma in our study had upper outer quadrant (55.7%) involvement followed by central (18.1%) cases, lower inner quadrant (14.9%), lower outer quadrant (8.6%) and upper inner quadrant (2.7%). Vijaya et al in 2020 observed upper outer quadrant (54.6%) was the most common tumour location followed by upper inner quadrant (21.8%), lower inner quadrant (17.1%), central quadrant (6.2%) and lower outer quadrant (3.1).…”

“…14 Uyisenga et al in 2020 concluded that invasive ductal carcinoma accounted for the majority of the patients (81.9%) followed by invasive lobular carcinoma (8.7%). 13 Leon et al in 2018 and Kim et al in 2020 found 70.0% and 86.0% of invasive carcinoma (NST) cases in their study respectively. 15,16 In present study, out of 205 cases of Invasive Carcinoma NST, most common tumor histological grade seen was grade 2 (moderately differentiated carcinoma) in 102(49.9%) cases followed by grade 3 (poorly differentiated) in 61(29.9%) cases and grade 1 (well differentiated carcinoma) in 41(20.2%) cases.…”

“…5 Uyisenga et al in 2020 concluded that tumor stage III was the most common stage accounting for 62.5% followed by stage II in 24.8% cases. 13 In this study, hormonal immunohistochemistry was applied only on 125 cases. Among 125 cases, 40% were triple negative cases followed by 30.4% of luminal A, 22.4% of Her2 overexpression and 7.2% of luminal B cases.…”

Differences in plasma microRNA content impair microRNA-based signature for breast cancer diagnosis in cohorts recruited from heterogeneous environmental sites

“…In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), breast cancer is becoming a major public health issue with a significant increase in its incidence, young age at diagnosis, and a high mortality rate as compared to developed parts of the world 3 , 4 . A recent study showed that more than 50% of all breast cancer women in Rwanda are younger than 50 years old, and more than 60% presented with advanced disease 5 .…”