Presentation delay in breast cancer patients and its association with sociodemographic factors in North Pakistan

作     者：Muhammad Aleem Khan Sheharyar Hanif Sundas Iqbal Muhammad Faheem Shahzad Sehrish Shafique Muhammad Taha Khan 

作者机构：Department of Nuclear MedicineNuclear MedicineOncology and Radiotherapy Institute Department of MedicineZiauddin Medical University Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology Department of PhysiologyRawal Institute of Health Sciences Nuffield Brentwood Hospital 

出 版 物：《Chinese Journal of Cancer Research》 (中国癌症研究（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2015年第27卷第3期

页      面：288-293页

核心收录：

学科分类：1002[医学-临床医学] 100214[医学-肿瘤学] 10[医学] 

基　　金：Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge all the studied patients for their cooperation. We wish to pay special gratitude to Dr. Javaid Irfan  Director NORI Islamabad and Dr. Mohammad Faheem  consultant Oncologist NORI Islamabad for his support and encouragement throughout the project. We also acknowledge our families and friends for their continuous support and motivation. Disclosure: The authors declare no conflict of interest 

主　　题：Breast cancer delayed diagnosis survival 

摘      要：Background： There is strong evidence that delayed diagnosis of breast cancer is associated with poor survival. The objectives were to determine the frequency of breast cancer patients with delayed presentation, the reasons of delay and its association with different socio-demographic variables in our ***： We interviewed 315 histologically confirmed breast cancer patients. Delay was defined as more than 3 months from appearance of symptoms to the consultation from doctor. Questions were asked from each patient which could reflect their understanding about the disease and which could be the likely reasons for their delayed ***： A total of 39.01%（n=123） of patients presented late and out of those, 40.7% wasted time using alternative medicines; 25.2% were not having enough resources; 17.1% presented late due to painless lump; 10.6% felt shyness and 6.5% presented late due to other reasons. Higher age, negative family history, 〈8 school years of education and low to middle socio-economic status were significantly associated with delayed presentation（P〈0.05）. Education and socioeconomic status were two independent variables related to the delayed presentation after adjustment for others [odds ratios（OR） of 2.26, 2.29 and 95% confidence intervals（CI） was 1.25-4.10, 1.06-4.94 respectively].Conclusions： Significant percentage of women with breast cancer in North Pakistan is experiencing presentation delay due to their misconceptions about the disease. Coordinated efforts with public health department are needed to educate the focused groups and mitigating the barriers identified in the study. Long term impact will be reduced overall burden of the disease in the region.