Relationship between family history of breast cancer and clinicopathological features in Moroccan patients.

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women all over the world. In addition to hormonal and environmental causes, family history is emerging as an important risk factor in the etiology of this disease. The aim of the present study is thus to compare the clinico-pathological features of familial and sporadic breast cancer in Moroccan patients.

Methods: A comparative retrospective cohort study was conducted on 570 women with familial and sporadic breast cancer who were diagnosed and treated in the Oncology Center of Ibn Rochd University Hospital in 2009. Data on breast cancer risk factors and clinico-pathological characteristics of the tumors were extracted from patients' medical records.

Results: Familial cases represented 18.4% of breast cancer patients. The age of onset appears to be earlier in familial breast cancers (P=0.0024). There were no significant differences between familial and sporadic groups according to histological type, tumor size and estrogen receptor status. However, Scarff-Bloom-Richardson grade III was found in 43.8% of familial cases vs 26.7% of sporadic cases (P=0.0127) and the lymph node involvement was observed in 72.4% of familial cases vs 58.9% in sporadic cases (P=0.0213). Moreover, familial breast cancer patients present especially progesterone receptor-negative tumors (P=0.0380).

Conclusions: Our initial significant findings show that familial breast cancer seems to affect young women and tends to present high Scarff-Bloom-Richardson grade tumors with lymph node involvement and absence of progesterone receptors. These preliminary results may be useful as clinical marker to identify familial breast cancer allowing the development of careful follow-up for this patients subtype.