Breast cancer in eastern Nigeria: a ten year review

Breast cancer, although reported to be the commonest female malignancy world-wide has not been extensively studied in Eastern Nigeria.

A study started in 1987 enrolled all patients with breast disease seen in the author's practice in 4 hospitals located in Eastern Nigeria. Record's of patients with breast cancer were extracted for this report.

Patients with breast cancer comprised 30% of all patients with breast disease with a male: female ratio of 1:67. The mean age was 44 years with a peak in 35-39 year range. Ninety-one percent of the patients were married, 69% premenopausal, 90% of the female patients were parous (Ave.. 5.35; range 1-11), 57% of these parous patients had their first full term pregnancy under 20 years of age and 90% had lactated. 64% had advanced disease on presentation (Manchester III & IV), the commonest sites of distant metastasis being vertebral column and lungs. 5% had bilateral disease at presentation, 4% gave a positive family history and 12% gave a history of previous benign breast disease. The commonest histological diagnosis was infiltrating ductal carcinoma. Only 7% presented within 1 month of discovery of symptoms while 15% waited longer than 1 year.

Breast cancer in Eastern Nigeria follows a pattern similar to other parts of the third world with late presentation in mainly multiparous premenopausal patients. Efforts at public health education to encourage earlier presentation should be encouraged.