Demographic evaluation and outcome of the early breast cancer patients undergoing breast conservation surgery as the primary modality of management – A single institutional experience at a medical teaching hospital

Abstract

The rates of BCS in the Indian subcontinent vary between 11% and 34%, as compared to the management of breast cancer in the west where the rates of BCS are as high as 70% in early breast cancer. All this has brought to light the need for evaluation of the best and the most functional and cosmetic surgeries that are available in the management of breast cancer especially when detected in the ver early stages. With all this in mind we decided to study the demographic evaluation and outcome of the early breast cancer patients undergoing breast conservation surgery as the primary modality of management at a medical teaching hospital.The study was done at the department of general surgery, oncosurgery, radiation oncology and medical oncology at Father Muller Medical College Hospital. All breast cancer patients underwent the following treatment regimen:- Surgery that included BCS with Axillary Dissection followed by neo adjuvant chemotherapy CFU regimen and then after completion of systemic chemotherapy 50-55 Gy of radiotherapy to the remaining breast with a tumor bed boost of 9-12 Gy in daily 2 Gy fractions for 5 days in a week over 5-6 weeks was given.In the present study new-found that the most common site in the breast for breast cancer was the superior - lateral quadrant of the 70 cases 56 cases 80% were in the superior - lateral quadrant. Common in this area. The most common histology seen in 67 cases 95.71% was infiltrating duct carcinoma. The median age was 45 years. 65 cases 92.86% had node-negative disease and 54 cases 77.14% tumors were hormone receptor-positive. One case developed isolated local recurrences which were managed surgically. None of the rest 69 cases of them had recurrence during follow up. The mean age was 44.75 with SD 8.8 years. The youngest was 28 years and the eldest was 63 years of age. In the 295 cases, we had 3 male cases, among those who had BCS all were females. We would like to conclude that whenever it is possible to conserve the breast every woman has to be given the option of breast conservation. It is also needed that the health care professionals and the primary health care physicians be sensitized to the need for effective clinical breast examination so that the rate of detection of early cancer be hastened and more women are offered the option of breast conservation.