Pattern of Histopathological Diagnosis of Breast lesions in Gombe, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Diseases of the breast are common and include problems, related to pregnancy and lactation, abscesses and other inflammatory conditions, nonneoplastic
proliferative disorders and neoplasms. No known previous histopathological analysis has been done in our setting to classify breast lesions.The purpose of this study is to review all cases of breast diseases seen in the department over a six-year period and to determine the pattern of histological diagnosis of breast diseases in our setting.
Methods: This was a hospital based retrospective study where our bench record books were used to identify all the breast lesions after which the Haematoxylin and Eosin
stained slides and the request cards were retrieved. The slides were reviewed based on the diagnostic criteria by Juan Rosai.
Results: A total of 291 breast lesions were seen in the department. One hundred and seventy three (59.5%) of these were inflammatory, non-neoplastic proliferative and
benign neoplastic disorders, while 118 (40.5%) were malignant neoplasms.
Fibroadenoma was the commonest benign breast lesion with 69 (23.7%) cases. Of all the malignancies, invasive ductal carcinoma was the most frequent (68.6%). Breast
cancer was found most frequently in the 4th decade (32.2%), followed by the 5th decade (24.6%) of life.
Conclusion: Female breast cancer was quite common in this study and most of our patients presented with advanced disease.

Keywords: Breast lesion, Fibroadenoma, invasive ductal carcinoma

Nigerian Journal of Medicine Vol. 17 (2) 2008: pp. 159-162