Metastatic Breast Cancer Survival in Pointe Noire: Analysis of 30 Cases

Abstract

Introduction: Breast cancer is the leading cancer and the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. About 5% to 10% of breast cancer patients present with metastases. While the 5-year survival of patients with local breast cancer varies around 98.8%, this survival rate drops to around 26.3% for metastatic patients. The objective of this study was to determine the survival of patients with metastatic breast cancer in resource-limited settings. Patients and Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study that took place in the Cancer Department of the General Hospital of Loandjili in Pointe Noire during the period from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2018, for duration of 6 years. 30 records of patients over 18 years of age and with histological evidence who received at least 3 courses of chemotherapy were collected. The variables studied were: age, level of education, socio-economic level, menopausal status, history, WHO status, menopausal status, tumor size, histological type, tumor location, the type of treatment and survival. Survival was calculated by Kaplan Meier method. Fisher’s exact test was used to search for correlation between variables. Results: The average age was 52.62 ± 10.96 years old. The extremes were 33 years and 75 years old. The most represented level of education was the primary level in 67% of cases. The majority of patients had low socioeconomic status in 50% of cases. The patients were menopausal in 57% of cases. The antecedents of cancer were present in 13% of cases. 50% of patients had a WHO status performance at 2. The tumor size was greater than 2 cm in 77% of cases. The most represented histological type was invasive ductal carcinoma in 93% of cases. The most represented histological grade was Scharff grade III Richardson bloom in 80% of cases. The most represented metastatic localization was pulmonary in 33% of cases. The metastatic localizations were unique in 47% of cases and multiple in 53% of cases. Anthracycline-based chemotherapy was more used in 53% of cases. Bivariate analysis revealed a correlation between tumor size and number of metastases, p 0.05. Patients treated with anthracyclines were greater than that of patients treated with taxanes in combination was 26.48 months, p > 0.05. Conclusion: Metastatic breast cancer remains an incurable disease, its survival remains low despite diagnostic and therapeutic advances that remain difficult to access for our resource-poor developing countries. Patients are treated with conventional chemotherapy (anthracyclines and taxanes). The most common metastases are respectively pulmonary, hepatic and cerebral in our context.