A Multi-centric retrospective study into the epidemiological distribution of breast cancer patients in India

A multicentric private hospital-based retrospective study was conducted to understand the epidemiology of breast cancer in terms of demographics and clinical characteristics (staging and hormone receptor status) at the time of diagnosis.

The data for 5,688 female breast cancer patients were collected from the hospital and clinical records of four study centres. All statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel 2016 and R software. Survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and compared by the log-rank test. A P value of <.05 was considered statistically significant.

The mean and median age of the study population was 52.6 (± 12.4) years and 53.0 (range 51-54 across the four centers) years, respectively. About 68% of patients were in the age category of 41 65 years, 17.6% were <40 years old among whom 23.4% of patients reported a positive family history. Most of the patients (66.3%) were diagnosed at an early stage (Stage I and II). The 3-year OS probability was 100%, 97.5%, 94.1%, and 74.7% for TNM Stages I, II, III, and IV, respectively. The 3-year RFS was 95.7%, 95.5%, 84.5%, and 49% for TNM Stages I, II, III, and IV, respectively.

The present study highlights the epidemiological distribution of breast cancer patients. It emphasizes the importance of disease awareness among the urban and educated female population as most patients were diagnosed at earlier stages and demonstrated higher OS and RFS than reported in government registries.