Clinicopathological aspects of breast cancer: A joint study between Indonesia and Japan

The problem of clinical management of breast cancer remains important in respect to both diagnosis and treatment. It has been suggested from earlier studies that two subsets of breast cancer might be considered, namely the agressive disease and the indolent one. Therefore, the study of clincicopathological aspects of breast cancer in respect to such phenomena became important to be conducted in Indonesian females as well. In parallell to the epidemiological case-control study, 300 breast cancer cases have been analyzed for their clinicopathological aspects. All cases were evaluated clinically using standard International TNM and Manchester Classification and histopathologically using modified WHO classification as recommended by the Japanese Breast Cancer Society. Breast cancer management protocols of the Indonesian Surgical Oncology Association as adapted from the widely accepted standards were applied accordingly. The results showed that the breast cancer cases were mostly found in the age group under 35 years and between 40 to 44 years. The majority (87%) were in advanced stage (stage IIIA, IIIB and IV) while only 13% were in early stage (stage I, II). Out of 300 cases only 110 cases were operable. The surgical procedures which were applied were as follows: radical mastectomy on 50 cases (16.6%), simple mastectomy on 40 cases (13.37%) and breast conserving surgery on 2 cases (0.67%). Lymph node involvement was found in 20 out 50 cases with radical mastectomy, and the average number of dissected lymph nodes were 6.8. The majority (88.33%) was of invasive ductal carcinoma and the rest were special types (9.67%) and non-invasive carcinoma (1.33%). Two cases (0.67%) were Paget’s disease of the breast. Among the invasive ductal carcinoma the scirrhous type was the most common type (49%).