Patterns of histopathology presentation of breast cancer in a tertiary hospital in Somalia

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in African women, and its incidence has been increasing steadily for the past three decades. The mortality and survival rates in Africa are higher than in developed countries due to poor oncological care, from prevention to treatment of the disease. The purpose of this study was therefore to describe the histopathological presentation of breast cancer in a tertiary care hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. Methods: In this study, a total of 246 cases were pathologically confirmed breast cancer (BC) reports were retrospectively obtained from the electronic records of Mogadishu-Somali-Turkey Education and Research Hospital for the period between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 22. The breast cancers were typed using the recent pathological typing of breast cancer. Results: A total of 246 patients with malignant breast disease were retrospectively obtained from the hospital pathology record. The age distribution of the study showed that the majority of patients were aged between 40 and 59 years, 62.9 percent. Invasive ductal carcinoma was the most frequently reported histologically diagnosed cases at 78.4 percent, followed by invasive lobular carcinoma at 18.6 percent. 90.5 percent of patients with invasive ductal carcinoma were aged between 40 and 59 years. The right breast was involved in 50 percent of cases, the left breast in 48.4 percent, and both breasts in four patients of the cases (1,5%). In the majority of cases, 71.3 percent were presented with stage II, followed by stage III (19.8%) and stage IV (7.2% ). Approximately more than half of the cases, 59.3%, were in grade 2 at the time of presentation, while 21.6% were in grade 3, and 7.8% were in grade 1. In conclusion, we report that breast cancer in Somalia mostly affects younger age groups. Invasive ductal carcinoma is the most prevalent histological type.