Factors Influencing Delayed Presentation of Breast Cancer Patients in Tertiary Level Hospital

Résumé

Introduction: Bangladesh is facing a high burden of breast cancer disease. It is the 2^nd leading cause of cancer death after cervical cancer. Delay in seeking treatment contributes to breast cancer patients’ presentation at tertiary hospitals when cancer is at an advanced stage and leads to poor prognosis. Methods & Materials: This cross-sectional observational study was conducted in the Department of Surgery, Rangpur Medical College Hospital, Rangpur from November 2015 to April 2016. A total of 62 patients with diagnosed carcinoma breast were included in this study through simple random sampling as per inclusion and exclusion criteria. Different statistical methods were utilized in this study. Data analysis was done by SPSS version 16.0. Result: 84.61% of patients came with more than 3 months delay and only 15.39% came within 3 months. 75.8% of the patients came from low social class, and among them, 80.86% came with more than 3 months delay. In this series, 32.26% of the study population came after 3 months of noticing the lump because of financial problems and 24.19% took initial treatment from a homeopath. 22.58% made delay because of the long distance to RpMCH. 9.67% took traditional treatment & came after this. 4.83% took the wrong treatment and another 6.45% had delay because of false negative FNAC results. Conclusion: The findings suggest that two-thirds of women with breast cancer presented late which has a significant effect on their disease prognosis. There is a great impact of patient factors (personal and social) on delayed presentation.