Breast pathology in mozambique: experience of five years

Abstract

Background Although diseases of the breast are common, no known previous histopathological study of its pattern has ever been done in Mozambique. We describe a five-year consecutive case-series of breast pathology from the Anatomical Pathology Service of the Maputo Central Hospital, Mozambique. Material and methods This is a retrospective study of all breast lesions diagnosed by cytology and histopathology (excluding from autopsies) and registered in the period 2008-2012. Results A total of 3972 cases of breast lesions were diagnosed, 62% by fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC). The mean age was 30.6 years; 93% were female and 92% black. Among women, benign conditions accounted for 80.0% of the cases; fibroadenoma was the most frequent benign lesion (38.2%). From the malignant tumors, 93.9% were carcinomas. For 713 cases there were both FNAC and histology analyses; the concordance was 98.5%, the sensitivity and specificity of FNAC for detecting malignancies were 90.7% and 100%, respectively. Insufficient material was observed in 232 of the patients submitted to FNAC. Conclusions Our results: show the high burden of benign and malignant breast diseases requiring anatomic pathological diagnosis. FNAC was an important tool for diagnosis in this resource-poor setting.