FIJIAN women diagnosed with aggressive grade three breast tumours face more than seven times the risk of death, while those with stage 4 disease have a median survival of just nine months.
This was revealed by Lautoka Hospital’s surgical registrar Dr Rahul Krishna Reddy, who analysed survival outcomes among 86 breast cancer patients.
He said the team used a Cox Proportional Hazards Regression model to identify independent predictors of death and found that age was not a significant factor.
Dr Reddy said the stage and grade of the cancer were critical factors and among the strongest predictors of mortality.
“Stage of cancer had a hazard ratio of 2.195, p-value 0.030. Advanced-stage disease more than doubled the risk of death,” he said.
“Tumour grade had a hazard ratio of 7.158, p-value 0.0019. Higher tumour grade increased mortality risk more than sevenfold.”
“For tumour grade, grade 1 patients maintained near 100 per cent survival for almost 12 months.”
“Grade 2 maintained about 90 up to 10 months before dropping to around 70 per cent at 15 months.”
“Grade 3 did poorly, survival fell to 80 by two months, 60 per cent by six months and below 40 by 12 months.”
“For Cancer, stage one and stage 2 maintained close to 100 per cent survival for the first 12 months.”
“Stage 3 showed a steady decline to about 60 per cent by 12 months.”
“Stage 4 had the poorest survival. It dropped to 80 per cent by two months, 70 per cent by six months and 55 per cent by 12 months. The median survival for stage 4 was approximately nine months.”
Dr Reddy is urging Fijians to act now to address the breast cancer burden.
“Breast cancer remains a significant and growing public health challenge in Fiji. A substantial proportion continue to present with advanced-stage disease.”
