Patient demographics and management challenges in an Irish symptomatic breast cancer unit

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Beaumont Hospital is a nationally designated symptomatic breast cancer unit, independent of the national screening programme, BreastCheck.

We hypothesised that patients attending symptomatic breast cancer units differ from national registry data and aimed to characterise this in a retrospective study.

A prospective database of patients diagnosed with breast cancer was maintained between 2014 and 2017. Multiple patient and tumour demographics were analysed retrospectively and compared with data from the National Cancer Registry.

In total, 944 patients were diagnosed with breast cancer, 379 (40%) were aged < 50, 206 (22%) 50-64, 208 (22%) 65-75 and 151 (16%) > 75 years respectively. Expectedly, older patients (≥ 65 years) had a higher proportion of oestrogen receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer (72%). Triple negative breast cancer was relatively more common (17%) among younger patients. These patients received more intensive chemotherapy: 118 (64%) received combination anthracycline-taxane chemotherapy, in comparison with only 14 (21%) of older patients. Patients generally presented at a later stage compared with national registry data: stage II 491 (52%) and stage III 179 (19%) versus stage II (50%) and stage III (13%).

Patients attending the symptomatic breast cancer unit Beaumont Hospital have different demographics compared with the national registry data. This presents particular challenges for management.