Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Clinical (Oncology)

Patients and methods : A total of 4310 patients diagnosed with breast cancer presenting to kasr Al Ainy center of clinical oncology and nuclear medicine from 1/1/2006 to 31/12/2011.We chose 1000 patients to include in our study who met the following inclusion criteria. Patients{u2019} files numbers were collected from the center{u2019}s database system then patients{u2019} data is collected from patients{u2019} files. Descriptive data is obtained using SPSS statistical package and data is tabulated.Results: Median age in our study was 49 years which is a younger age compared to that in the United States which was 61 years Eight five percent of patients in our study received chemotherapy at our institute while 79.9% of them received radiotherapy Due to long work up time, financial problems and occasional unavailability of drugs, 60.5% of our patients who received chemotherapy at our institute were delayed for whole chemotherapy course duration for more than 30 days while 39.62% of patients were delayed for more than 180 days after surgery for radiotherapy.Triple negative breast cancer patients in our study were 64 patients, half of them were above 50 years old,78.1% presented in adjuvant phase while 21.9% were locally advanced. Half of the patients presented in stage III, due to the more aggressive nature of the triple negative subtype. The prevalence of triple negative breast cancer in the older age group in our study is not matching with literature Conclusions: Breast cancer in Egypt is different from the west in some clinic-pathological characteristics. The most evident was age at diagnosis which was younger in our study. Many missing data was encountered and so more emphasis should be made about complete data entry. Electronic medical records are advised to be implemented to allow for easier and more accurate data retrieval and will save time for future researchers. Triple negative breast cancer in our study was at older age which is not matching with the population and requires further studies to confirm this finding

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