MALIGNANCY IN BREAST LUMPS

Objective:(i) To assess the frequency ofmalignancy in patients presenting with breast lumps. (ii)To find the age related frequency of malignancy in these cases.Design Observational study. Setting: Department of General Surgery, Combined Military Hospital Lahore. Period:From Jan 1998 and Jan 2000. Patients and methods: All patients presenting with breast lumps were included in thestudy. All patients had FNAC of the lump. Patients with signs or suspicion of malignancy were subjected to core needleor excisional biopsy and pathologic diagnosis confirmed. Cases proven malignant on FNAC and showing signs ofmalignancy under went mastectomy, followed by histopathological diagnosis. Non-diagnostic smears were repeatedor subjected to biopsy of the lesion. Cases of suspicious smears also underwent biopsy for histopathological diagnosis.Results: 277 patients with breast lumps managed at CMH Lahore were studied. 24.2% were diagnosed as having amalignant lump. Mean age in the present study is 32.96yrs for benign and 51.81yrs for malignant breast lumps.Conclusions: Frequency of breast cancer in breast lumps was 24.2% in the total cases in the study, almost one in 4female patients coming to a surgical clinic with breast lumps can have a malignant breast lump. Breast cancerfrequency is negligible under the age of 30 yrs. The probability of diagnosing of a breast lumps as malignant is 1 in 3in 31-40 yrs age group, 2 in 5 in 41-50 yrs age group, and more than 1 in 2 thereafter. There is a greater frequencyin younger age group in the population in our study as compared to international studies.