Contribution of Mammography in the Screening of Suspicious Breast Cancer Lesions in Congolese Women in Kinshasa

Abstract

Background: Mammography is a particular mammary imaging technique, an important tool for screening, diagnosis and monitoring of breast disease in general and breast cancer in particular, for which incidence and mortality are well established. Several studies have shown a reduction in breast cancer mortality reaching 40% in women screened by mammography. Thus, the prognosis after treatment is better because of early detection. In the DRC, in developing countries, the mortality rate is high because the diagnosis is late and therefore responsible for a bad prognosis. However, no studies on early detection by mammography have been performed to our knowledge. Our goal was to determine the mammography contribution in suspicious lesions detection of breast cancer in Kinshasa. Method: A retrospective and descriptive study of 1738 mammograms at the Gombe Imaging Center from January 2012 to December 2015. The reports were prepared by radiologists. We re-read approximately 230 images under supervision to complete the missing data related to interpretation. Age, clinical information, breast density (BIRADS type), elemental or associated lesions, and ACR radiological diagnosis were the key parameters collected on an epidemiological data questionnaire and analyzed on the SPSS 20 software. Results: 347 screening mammograms or 20% were performed with an average age of 48.6 years ; 25 of these (7.2%) had mammographic lesions suspected of malignancy, among which 23 were considered in situ. In addition, our study showed that high breast density is a radiologically visible risk factor. Conclusion: This study has shown that mammography is a tool to integrate into cancer screening in our country. Because it allowed to detect suspicious lesions in asymptomatic women.

Keywords

• mammography, screening, breast cancer, kinshasa