Background: Non Communicable diseases like cancer is a major public health problem worldwide and in India, due to disease burden, fatality and loss of DALYs. In India, among women, the burden of cervical cancer is reducing and incidence of breast cancer is increasing. Objectives: This descriptive study was conducted to describe the clinic-epidemiological pattern and care received by breast cancer patients in a cancer hospital in Mysore. Methodology: The data of breast cancer patients for 5 years (2007-2011) was obtained from BHIO, Mysore. Sociodemographic, clinical, his topathological, diagnostic and treatment details were obtained from the case record. Results: A steady increase in the proportion of breast cancer cases over years in observed. Majority (60.3%) of the cases were reported from women in their 4th or 5th decade of life and nearly one third of the patients had breast cancer before 40 years of age. Fifty –two percent of the patients were from rural areas, seventy- five percent of them were either illiterate or had less than 10 years of schooling, eighty –seven percent of them belonged to middle-low income families and half of them did not have any form of health insurance. Majority of the women took 3 to 6 months duration of time to seek advice from a hospital for complains of lump in the breast and more 75% of the women presented at Locally Advanced Breast Cancer (LABC) i.e Stage 2 and Stage 3, less than half of them received some cancer directed treatment at the Cancer hospital and 30% of them were lost to follow up.
Conclusion: To Combat the increasing burden of breast cancer, improvement in breast cancer care is essential and strategies like increasing awareness of women regarding breast cancer, empowering women for breast self examination, improving access to mammographic screening services and ensuring availability and accessibility to cost effective surgical, chemotherapy and Radiotherapy facilities for breast cancer cases is vital.
