Late presentation of breast cancer in Aden, Yemen.

UNLABELLED: The aim of this study is to determine the frequency and characteristics of patients who presented with late stage breast cancer at Al-Amal Oncology Unit in Aden. It was conducted retrospectively in Aden, at Al-Amal Oncology Unit of Al-Gamhouria Modern General Hospital, by reviewing all records of breast cancer patients at any stage and attended with histopathologically documented breast cancer from the time of establishment of the unit on December 1, 2007 to December 31, 2009. The total number of documented breast cancer patients was 197 and classified according to the stage at presentation and after the exclusion of 21 patients who were not staged. 118 patients with late inoperable stages were selected and carefully evaluated of their demographic characteristics and was found that they represented 67.0% of the total staged breast cancer patients. Most of these patients are in the reproductive age and residents of Aden governorate and neighboring governorates. Metastasis was mainly evident at the lymph nodes, bones, liver and lungs. The case fatality rate for late stage breast cancer is 8.5 per 100 patients. This study concludes that a high percentage of Yemeni patients in Aden presented with late stage breast cancer which led to the failure of possible curative surgical intervention and resulted to high metastatic disease and fatality rate. KEYWORDS: Late Presentation, Aden, Yemen, Breast Cancer, Stages.