TNM staging and classification (familial and nonfamilial) of breast cancer in Jordanian females

Purpose : Staging of breast tumor has important implications for treatment and prognosis. This study aims at pinpointing the frequency of each stage among familial and nonfamilial breast cancers. Materials and Methods : Ninety-nine Jordanian females diagnosed with familial and nonfamilial breast cancer between 2000 and 2002 were enrolled in this study All breast cancer cases were staged according to the TNM classification into in situ, early invasive, advanced invasive and metastatic. Results : Forty-three cases were familial breast cancer and 56 were nonfamilial. One female breast cancer was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) cancer. Fifty cases were diagnosed in early stages of invasive breast cancer, of which 31 cases were familial, 29 cases were classified as advanced invasive, where 21 cases were nonfamilial and 19 cases were metastatic stage of breast cancer, with 16 nonfamilial cases. Stage 2b was the most common stage of early invasive cases and represented 48% of the early stage of breast cancer. On the other hand, among cases diagnosed with advanced invasive breast cancer, stage 3a was the most common stage and represented 89.6% of the advanced stage. Interestingly, all cases of stage 3a belonged to TNM stages of T2N2M0 and T3N1M0. The tumor size in all cases of Jordanian females diagnosed with advanced invasive breast cancer exceeded 2 cm in size due to selection bias from symptomatic women in our study. Conclusion : The incidence of nonfamilial breast cancer was slightly higher than that of the familial type amongst studied the Jordanian females studied. The early invasive stage of breast cancer was more common in the familial while the advanced invasive and metastatic breast cancer cases were encountered more often in the nonfamilial type. Our study was based on a small sample and symptomatic women. Therefore, more research with larger population samples is needed to confirm this conclusion.