Thesis (M.Med. (Radiation Oncology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / Background
Breast cancer is known to be a heterogeneous disease that demands patient centered
care. Establishing the clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer patients is a vital
step in an effort to individualize their treatment.
Aim
The aim is to evaluate the clinicopathologic features of the different subtypes of breast
cancer when classified according to immunohistochemistry markers in women attending
Pietersburg hospital.
Methods
A retrospective review of medical records of women treated at Pietersburg hospital
between 2010 and 2011 was done. Data collection was extracted on a customized data
collection sheet. Chi square was used to determine association between clinicopathologic
features and molecular subtypes. Analysis of variants was used to assess association
between molecular types and age.
Results
The mean age of the population was 55.3 years (+/-14 standard deviation). The majority
of patients were in stage III (46.9%) and IV (33.5%). The ER, PR, HER2/neu positive rate
was 50.6%, 30% and 14,3 % respectively with a negative rate of 13,4%, 19,5% and 23,4%
respectively. ER, PR and HER2/neu was unknown in 18%, 19,
5% and 23,4% respectively. The most common molecular subtype was luminal A (53,6%)
followed by triple negative (27.2%), HER2/neu (11, 4%) and luminal B (7. 9%).There was
no association between the subtypes and tumour stage (p=0.578).The rate of distant
metastasis was similar across the subtypes being 37,9%,35%, 32,4% and 31,9% in
HER2/neu, luminal B ,luminal A and TNBC, respectively. All four molecular subtypes had
high rate of axillary lymph node involvement (p=0.886) Luminal A had the least percentage
of high grade tumours with TNBC having the highest. Five-year overall survival for the
cohort was 25, 6% with luminal A and B having a better 5 year overall survival of 27,2%
and 25% respectively, whereas HER2/neu and TNBC had lower 5 year OS of 24% and
23,3%.
Conclusion
The findings of this study suggest that luminal A subtype is the most predominant and the
majority might benefit from hormonal therapy. However, some patients could not be
classified due to missing IHC marker test results. The outcome across all four subtypes is
poor and more effort should be put towards improving the diagnosis and treatment
individualization and follow-up in these patients.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ul/oai:ulspace.ul.ac.za:10386/4004 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Mphahlele, Ramadimetje Joyce |
| Contributors | Ooko, F. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | xv, 74 leaves |
| Relation |
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