Article Sidebar
Article Details
Articles published in the Ghana Medical Journal may not be published elsewhere without the consent of the publishers. Request for consent for reproduction of material published in the Ghana Medical Journal should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief. The publisher of this Journal reserves the right of copyright of all articles published in the Journal. It should also be understood by all authors that articles approved for publication in the journal are also deemed for publication online by the publisher.
Ghana Medical Journal is an Open Access journal and applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (Creative Commons Attribution License) 4.0 International. See details on the Creative Commons website (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) to articles and other content published in the Journal.
Main Article Content
A study of breast cancer in korle bu teaching hospital: assessing the impact of health education
Abstract
Teaching hospital (KBTH). Method: A prospective study of the characteristics of breast cancer patients seen by a surgical unit at
KBTH over a three year period. Results: There were 158 patients, 156 females and 2 males. The age group most commonly affected
was 40-49. The upper outer quadrant of the breast was affected in 67/158 (42.4%) and all quadrants affected in 29/158 (18.4%). Ninety one (57.6%) had Stage III – IV disease and the average duration
of symptoms was 10 months. Average tumour size was 6cm x 7cm. Diagnosis was by triple assessment with Fine needle aspiration cytology the most frequently used pathological investigation.
Invasive ductal carcinoma was the commonest pathological type (115/134). Eighty three (52.5%) had mastectomy and 12 (7.6%) had wide local excision. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was given to 77/123 (62.6%), 5 of whom had complete pathological response. Fifty five (34.8%) were lost to follow up: 20 before treatment commenced, 15
during or after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and 14 after treatment. Eleven developed lymphoedema. There were 42 metastatic events affecting 35 patients during follow-up, including pleura (11),
brain (10) and lungs (9). Conclusions: Breast cancer continues to affect a young population and patients still present late with advanced disease. Education needs to be intensified, but research into the reasons for late presentation will help address the reasons/ misconceptions responsible for this state of affairs.
