Histological profile and age at diagnosis of breast and ovarian tumors: A register-based study in Espirito Santo, Brazil.

Breast and ovarian cancers are important public health problems in Brazil. However, in various locations in the Brazilian territory these types of cancer remain poorly characterized. Therefore, this study aimed to compare data collected from the Pathology Services of two Oncology Reference Hospitals in Espirito Santo state (Brazil) with the data in previous Brazilian studies. Histological type frequency and age at diagnosis of breast and ovarian tumors between 2001-2004 and 2009-2010 were analyzed. Tumor size, histological grade, lymph node status, hormone receptor status [estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR)] as well as HER2 and Ki-67 marker status were obtained for the cases of infiltrating ductal carcinomas of the breast during the period 2009-2010. Categorical variables were described by their absolute and/or relative frequencies, while quantitative variables were expressed as the mean ± standard deviation and median, using 95% confidence intervals. Chi-square tests were performed to examine whether or not the studied variables differed by age at the time of diagnosis. Malignant breast tumors (1,758) and 119 malignant ovarian tumors were examined. Mean ages for malignant breast and ovarian tumors were 53.59 and 52.98 years, respectively. An increased tumor frequency in the age group of ≤35 years was observed for other malignant tumors of the breast during the period of 2009-2010, compared to 2001-2004. When considering only infiltrating ductal carcinomas with immunohistochemistry records available, there were 82.1% (133 cases) of ER+/PR+ tumors, 1.9% (3 cases) of ER-/PR-/HER2 3+ and 16.04% (26 cases) of ER-/PR-/HER2- tumors. The findings of this study demonstrated detailed information concerning breast and ovarian tumor behavior in the Espirito Santo state (Brazil), allowing for a precise comparison with other populations (Brazilian or international), which may be helpful in the planning of prevention and treatment strategies.