Abstract:
Background: Incidence of breast cancer (BC) is increasing in Africa, with higher
case-mortality compared to non-African settings. Prior studies have shown that
BC in Africa has a much higher proportion of estrogen-receptor (ER) negative and
triple negative (TN) cancers, subsets with poorer prognosis regardless of the setting.
However, there is growing evidence that these differences may partly be attributed to
prior study designs and resources.
Objectives : To determine the status of hormone receptor ER, PR and growth factor
Her2 status on breast cancer.
Design: A prospective study.
Setting: Histopathology and immunohistochemistry laboratary at Moi Teaching and
Referral Hospital
Subjects: Tissue specimens from 100 breast cancer patients.
Results: Patients mean age at the time of diagnosis was 45 years, 98% of cases were
in women, 90% were infiltrating ductal carcinoma, and the majority were poorly
differentiated. Sixty-two percent were ER positive 44% were PR positive and 22% were
Her-2 /neu . Twenty-four percent of cases were TN.
Conclusion: With improved access to in-country reliable IHC, our study supports the
growing data that African breast cancer is not radically biologically different from
breast cancers outside Africa.
