Abstract
Introductionbreast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women worldwide. It is a heterogeneous disease with diverse histological types that are associated with different natural history and response to therapy. Invasive ductal and lobular carcinoma are the most common histological types. There are rare histological types with different biological behaviours from the common types, although treatment approaches are the same. Data on rare histological types of breast cancer in our population are scarce raising the need to identify these patients and document their treatment outcome. The objectives of this study are to determine the proportion and treatment outcomes of breast cancer patients with rare histological types.Methodsthis was an observational retrospective study using records of patients treated for breast cancer at the University College Hospital Ibadan Nigeria from 2008 to 2012. Patients with rare histological types were selected for further analysis. Data on patient and tumour characteristics were extracted and five-year survival pattern was determined using Kaplan Meier method.Resultsthe total number of patients with breast cancer was 761. Thirty-two (4.2%) had rare histology that consisted of medullary carcinoma 14(1.9%), mucinous carcinoma 10(1.4%) and 2(0.3%) each for squamous cell carcinoma, stromal sarcoma, cribriform carcinoma and Paget's disease. The overall five-year survival was 50% with median survival of 52 months.Conclusionthe proportion of breast cancer patients with rare histology is low similar to other reports among Caucasians. Medullary adenocarcinoma was the most common subtype followed by mucinous adenocarcinoma.
Highlights
Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that consists of several distinct entities with different features
Medullary carcinoma constituted 1.9% of the total breast cancers seen under the period of study, it has been reported to be about 1-7% in most cases depending on the strictness of diagnostic criteria used [1,4]
With respect to mucinous carcinoma, it accounted for 1.4% which is close to the 2% that has been reported in the literature [1], in some reports mucinous carcinomas represented up to 4% of all breast cancers [5]
Summary
Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that consists of several distinct entities with different features One of these is its various histological types. There are no treatment guidelines for patients with rare histological types of breast cancer. This is probably because their rarity makes it difficult to organise clinical trials with sufficient sample sizes and timely accrual of subjects. At present, these tumours are being managed with standard therapy as there are no evidence based specific methods for their management [3]. This study was carried out with the objectives of determining the proportion of breast cancer patients with rare histological types, the clinical and treatment characteristics of patients with rare histological types of breast cancer and the five-year survival pattern of the patients with rare histological types of breast cancer in the study population
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