Clinicopathologic study of breast carcinoma occurring during pregnancy and lactation

In a 16-year study of 703 cases of female breast carcinomas seen at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria, seven cases were found in pregnant women and another seven cases in lactating women. Thus, pregnancy and lactation complicated breast carcinoma about two times per 100 female breast carcinomas. During the same period there were 51,058 deliveries, for a rate of three breast carcinomas per 10,000 deliveries. When women in the most active reproductive age group (20-40 years) were considered, there were 309 cases of female breast carcinomas. Therefore, 5% of women with breast carcinoma in this age group had concurrent pregnancy or lactation. The patients presented late, and the prognosis was generally poor. While the clinical features of inflammatory carcinoma are similar in most countries, the characteristics of some of the histologic types of breast neoplasia encountered in pregnancy and lactation in Nigerian women appear to differ from those reported in most European and American studies.