[Comparison of breast cancers diagnosed in and outside the large scale mammography program of L'Ariana state in Tunisia]

ABSTRACT

To report the anatomoclinical comparison of BC issued from the large scale mammography program in Ariana state of Tunisia to those of the cases "classically" diagnosed in patients consulting for breast symptoms. This retrospective study was done between April 2004 and June 2007. We have included 58 women issued from the large scale mammographic program of the state of Ariana in Tunisia [Group I] and 100 symptomatic women who came to our patient clinic [Group 2]. We have compared epidemiological characters [age, delay of diagnosis...], tumoral size, histological sue and type, grade, hormonal receptors and therapeutic protocols. In the large scale mammographic program, BC are insitu carcinomas in 11.1% and invasive carcinomas in 88.9% of the cases. The mean age was 48 years old in the group I versus 46 years in group 2. In the first group, the mean clinical and histological tumoral size was 20mm and 22 mm versus 45mm and 36 mm for the group 2. The invasive canalar carcinoma was the most frequent histological type in both groups. The lymph nodes were negative in 58.1% of the cases in group I versus 34% in group 2.80% of the patients in group 2 had mastectomy versus 42.8% in the first one. The mortality was 10% in the screened women versus 6.8% in the other group2. The results of large scale mammographic BC program were favourable for the management of breast cancer in terms of clinical and histological tumoral size, number of positive nodes, number of mastectomies and the survival rates