Histological Profile of Breast Cancer: Differences in Women Above and Below 40 Years

INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer is a major public health issues in the world. Up to 30 years the occurrence is low, related to mutations in specific genes and it has a worse prognosis. The system of classification of Nottingham, histological grade, shows that patients with lower histological grade has a better prognosis. METHODS: It was analyzed medical records of 40 patients diagnosed with breast cancer in Napoleon Laureano Hospital, Joao Pessoa, from January 2011 to March 2012, among which 26 of them obey the inclusion criteria (histological diagnosis of breast cancer) and exclusion (neoadjuvant chemotherapy and cytology). It was correlated the histological grade with patient age, axillary lymph node involvement, size and histological type of tumor. It was compared the size of tumors with the independent t test and to compare the other variables, the chi-square, G test (Williams) or the Fisher exact test, when appropriate to the situation. RESULTS: in terms of age, 15% were patients younger than 40 years at diagnosis (32-40) and 85% over 40 years (41-71). There was no significant difference in the size of tumors among patients above and below 40 years (t = 0.56, df = 23, p = 0.58), and the lymph node involvement (G (Williams) = 2. 23, df = 1, p = 0.58), and the Nottingham histological grade (?2 = 20. 7, df = 16, p = 0. 19), and nuclear grade (?2 = 15. 6, df = 16, p = 0. 68). According to Fisher s exact test (p = 0.56) there is no difference between the histological types of tumors in both groups. In the group aged over 40 years, invasive ductal carcinoma was the most frequent (?2 = 175.5, df = 4, P << 0. 05). In patients younger than 40 years, one of them had a histological grade (HG) III, two of them GH I and one other had GH not rated. The ones above 40, the GH were higher, II and III seen in 77. 25% of cases. DISCUSSION: Breast cancer has a low incidence in young people with a poor prognosis. According to Barreto et. al, 2006, there is a predominance of 96. 3% of invasive ductal carcinoma in women younger than 40 years. In our study, invasive ductal carcinoma had a frequency similar to papillary carcinoma in women under 40 years. In the group above 40, the results corroborate the current literature, 72. 7% of cases are invasive ductal carcinoma (Barreto et al, 2006). CONCLUSION: in this study, no correlation was found between breast cancer in younger patients and higher histologic grade. This may be related to the small number of cases that were studied.