Article Text
Abstract
Introduction/Background Infraclinical breast cancers represent a particular entity; they occur in an asymptomatic woman without any suspicious abnormalities at clinical examination of the breasts and lymph node areas.The percentage diagnosed cases has increased significantly over the last 30 years thanks to technological advances in radiological detection and biopsy sampling.
Methodology This work reports the risk factors, the circumstances of diagnosis, the methods of diagnosis, the management and prognosis of infraclinical breast cancer, through a retrospective study of 74 patients treated at the Med VI Center for Gyneacologic and Breast Cancer over a period of 3 years, from January 2015 to December 2017.
Results Infra-clinical breast cancer accounts for 6.23% of breast cancers treated in our service in the above-mentioned period. The average age of our patients is 43 years.
Regarding risk factors, the average age of onset of menarche is 14 years, 54% of patients used hormonal contraception, 3 patients had a family history of breast cancer (4.05%). 76% of patients never breastfed. 50% of the cases were nulligravida.
In 69% of cases the reason for consultation was mastalgia. For the other 31 cases a breast cancer screening compaign motivated the consultation. Mammography is the only paraclinical examination that has suspected the diagnosis. Microcalcifications were present in 58%. Stellar or linear suspicious opacities were present in 42% of cases.
In 82.3% the pathological examination revealed infiltrating ductal carcinoma and 17.7% infiltrating lobular carcinoma. As treatment 74% of our patients had a zonectomy, while 26% had a quadrantectomy.
Conclusion The increasing diagnosis of breast cancer at a subclinical stage suggests the importance of radiological screening rather than clinical examination only, especially in patients with risk factors. This will affect positively the management of the disease, reduce its morbidity and mortality and contribute to the well-being of the patient.
Disclosure Nothing to disclose.