Karyotypic Analysis of Synchronous Breast Cancer and Thyroid Diseases: A Pilot Study at a Tertiary Care Centre

Abstract

Introduction: The coincidence of thyroid disease and breast cancer is in controversy since long time. Current scientific evidence supports a strong association between the hormone oestrogen and breast cancer and also with thyroid diseases. Aim: To study the karyotypic association between breast cancer and thyroid diseases. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional pilot study was conducted from October 2018 to August 2020 in Department of Surgery, Hamidia hospital, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. A total of 50 patients were included in the study with a division into two respective arms of patients with Carcinoma breast (Ca breast) and thyroid diseases. Each arm included 25 patients. All patients were subjected to detailed history and complete physical examination. Karyotyping of all patients was carried out by using fasting blood samples and standard staining techniques were applied to detect any chromosomal aberration. Statistical analysis done on the collected data, by Chi-square test and t-test by Statistical Analysis of the Social Sciences (SPSS) v23 (IBM Corp.). Results: In a total of 50 patients with breast cancer (25) and thyroid disorders (25), most of these patients 24 (48%) were in the age group of 40-49 years. Amongst the 25 patients with breast cancer, thyroid diseases were present in 10 (40%), while no case of carcinoma breast was seen in patients with thyroid disorders. In seven patients, karyotype abnormality was observed in the form of co-existing deletions and micro deletions, and all of them had synchronous carcinoma breast and thyroid diseases, which is significant (p-value=0.0085), showing some definite association at the genetic level. Conclusion: To summarise, the present study clearly shows that patients with breast cancer tend to have co-existing thyroid diseases, which can either be benign or malignant thus these individuals should be appropriately investigated to exclude the possibility of an underlying undiagnosed thyroid disease, which would also help in early diagnosis and treatment.

Keywords

• carcinoma breast
• karyotypic aberrations
• thyroidectomy