A ten year histopathological review of breast lumps in a tertiary health institution in Nigeria.

Abstract

The aim of this work was to evaluate retrospectively the prevalence of various breast lesions in women living in Benin City and environs and to determine the common age of onset of different lesions. The pathology reports and charts of all patients who had breast masses excised in the University of Benin Teaching hospital between January 2001 and December 2010 were reviewed. One thousand four hundred and fifty-three (1453) breast lesions were analysed out of which 38 (2.6%) were from males while 1415 (97.4%) were from females giving a male to female ratio of 1:37. There were 1002 (69%) benign lesions and 451 (31%) malignant lesions (ratio 2:1). For the female breast, benign lesions were 971 (68.6%) while malignant lesions constituted 444 (31.4%), whereas in the males (n=31), 81.6% of breast lesions were benign leaving only (n=7) 18.4% as malignant. Of all the Benign lesions, fibroadenoma was the most frequent, constituting 359 (37%) followed by fibrocystic change disease which accounted for 238 (24.5%). Fibroadenoma had a mean age of 22.3 (SD = 5.5) years. This was followed closely by invasive ductal carcinoma with a mean age of 48.2 (SD = 4.1) years. Fibrocystic change disease occurred in women with a mean age of 30 (SD = 3.5) years, whereas sclerosing adenosis was found to occur most commonly in women with a mean age of 27.1 (SD =5.5). The most common age of occurrence of fibrous disease of the breast was 31.3 (SD = 5.4). Only 38 breast lesions were seen in the male with gynaecomastia constituting the majority, 30 (79.0%) and invasive ductal carcinoma making up 15.8%. The mean ages for gynaecomastia and invasive ductal carcinoma in the male breast were 42.0 (SD = 9.1) and 56.7 (SD = 7.3) years respectively. Fibroadenoma still remains the most common benign breast lesion in female while gynaecomastia is the commonest benign breast lesion in males. Breast Cancer tends to occur at significantly higher age in males than in females. The age ranges of both male and female breast cancer patients need to be considered in setting up breast cancer screening programme.