Histopathological and Molecular Characteristics of Breast Cancer Patients in Northern Egypt

Abstract

Background: In 2020, breast cancer (BC) became the most common cancer worldwide, including Egypt. Despite the extensive research throughout the past years, a detailed analysis of the patients, including the molecular and histopathological characteristics, is needed in order to tailor effective screening and treatment strategies for a particular population of BC patients. In this study, we aimed to explore the various characteristics and survival of a large cohort of BC patients in Northern Egypt. Materials and Methods: The recruited cohort in this study was composed of more than 4,000 BC patients who were managed in different centers across Northern Egypt for 10 years. Various clinical, demographic, and histopathological parameters were retrieved from the records. This included tumor size, grade, and stage, as well as the histological and molecular subtypes. Also, therapeutic modalities and responses, as well as disease-free survival (DFS, no recurrence or metastasis) and overall survival rates (OS, alive/dead), were collected. The SPSS 26.0 software was used for statistical analysis, and p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Invasive ductal carcinoma was found to be the most common histological type in the recruited cohort (94%). Interestingly, the median age of the patients’ cohort was 50 years, with most of the cohort presenting before the age of 55 years. Around 50% of the patients presented with advanced stage III. Further, the classification of the BC patients according to the Nottingham grading system revealed that the majority were graded as well and moderately differentiated BC (grades 1 and 2). Moreover, 77% of the patients belonged to the hormonal subtypes with positive estrogen (ER) and/or progesterone (PR) receptors. Intriguingly, 45.5% of BC patients were classified as luminal B subtype, 31.8% as luminal A group, 7.6% of BC patients as HER2-enriched subtype, and around 15% were triple-negative subtype. Such stratification by molecular subtyping of BC patients showed a significant difference in both the DFS and OS of the patients. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the different clinical, demographic, and histopathological characteristics of BC patients in Northern Egypt that might be different from other populations. Further studies are needed to identify early detection programs and management strategies for each population in order to improve BC patients’ clinical outcomes. No funding. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.