334P - The contribution of nurses in early detection of breast cancer in Cameroon

Background

Compared to global figures, breast cancer mortality to incidence ratio is worst in Sub Saharan Africa where about 80% of patients present with locally advanced and metastatic disease at diagnosis. In Cameroon, breast cancer is the commonest cancer with 4,170 cases recorded each year constituting 20.1% of all cancers diagnosed. Late disease presentation is attributed to poor awareness, absence of organized early detection programs, and inadequate facilities for accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment. Our objective was to investigate the role that nurses involved in cervical cancer screening/prevention can play in early detection of breast cancer in Cameroon.

Methods

The nurses involved in cervical cancer screening/prevention in a large faith-based healthcare organization called the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS) were trained to do clinical breast exams (CBE) for women aged 21 years and over, and also trained on breast tissue collection for pathology processing and examination. Clients with abnormal breast findings were provided Fine Needle Aspirations (FNA), TruCut biopsies or referred for ultrasound and/or mammography depending on the clinical presentation.

Results

Between January 2020 and December 2022, a total of 16,038 women age range (14-99) years were provided CBE with a mean and median age of 40.4 and 39, respectively. Among these, 750 (4.7%) had abnormal findings. Among those with abnormal findings, 397(52.9%) had breast masses for which 213 (53.7%) had TruCut biopsies and FNA and the others were either referred or had previously established diagnosis. From the 213 Tru-Cut biopsies and FNA’s done, 76 (35.7%) showed a pathology diagnosis of invasive breast cancer while the others showed: acute mastitis 3 (2.9%), fibroadenoma 25 (11.7%), benign mass 83 (39.0%), non-diagnostic 12 (5.6%) and other diagnosis 19 (8.9%).

Conclusions

Nurses can play a key role in early detection of breast cancer if they are trained, and this can greatly reduce the number of women seen with late stage disease and also reduce mortality rates.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.