Spectrum of complaints presented at a specialist breast clinic in kumasi, ghana.

BACKGROUND In Ghana data on breast disease is lacking. OBJECTIVE To describe the type of complaints presented at a specialist clinic. STUDY DESIGN A prospective descriptive study. SETTING The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital Breast Care Centre (KATH-BCC) METHOD: Data including the age, type of complaints, the clinical, radiological and histological diagnosis was obtained and recorded from all consecutive adult patients seen and treated at the KATH-BCC between July 2004 and March 2005. RESULTS A total of 1678 patients were studied. There were 10 males. The ages of the patients varied between one month and 95 years. The three most common complaints were breast pain 1210 (72.1%), breast lump 312 (18.6%), nipple discharge 96 (5.7%) and other miscellaneous condition 60 (3.6%). The three most common finding in the 1210 patients with breast pain were normal breast 736 (60.8%), fibrocystic breast changes 200 (16.5%) and breast abscess or mastitis 161(13.3%). The main histological types of the 312 breast lumps were fibroadenomata 159(51.0%), fibrocystic changes 97 (31.1%) and carcinoma 56 (17.9%). CONCLUSION Breast pain is the most common breast related problem presented at our specialist breast clinic. One in five women with a breast lump had cancer.