Introduction
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women in Cameroon. Among the causes of these deaths, many authors have pointed out the late delay in diagnosis. The objective of this study was to investigate among socioeconomic, health and sociocultural variables those wich determine more the late stages diagnosis in Breast cancer.
Method:
A cross-sectional and analytic study were use on a population of 51 patients enrolled in the oncology department of the General Hospital of Yaoundé (HGY). Software SPSS 20, and Epi-info XLSAT 7 were used to analyze the data. The analysis plan included a descriptive analysis of the variables, a correlation study between the variables and bivariate analysis from the chi-square test to determine the relationship between the dependent variable (late stage diagnosis) and independent variables (socio-economic, health and socio-cultural).
Results:
According to the analysis, the medium age at diagnosis was 47 years, with extremes of 20 and 74 years. The average time to diagnosis was 13 months (1 year 1 month) with a range of 2 months and 72 months (6 years). Three quarters of the cancers were diagnosed at stages 3 and 4 and more than a quarter of the cases had metastases. 74.5% of late cases had never received a screening examination. 66.6% of patients later had never heard of before breast cancer disease and 63.2% of late cases have neglected disease early.
Conclusion:
Time late diagnosis and the therapeutic itinerary to medical care are the most decisive variables of late stage diagnosis of breast cancer in women in this study. Act on these variables required to emphase on the education of women to change their behavior and their therapeutic perception of the cancer disease.