The role of integrated patient care in Mastology to reduce breast cancer mortality rate

Abstract

After examining 39,589 women attended from July, 2005 to May, 2010 in the Reference Center for Women’s Health (Pérola Byington State Hospital), we concluded the diagnosis in one step consultation in 95.4% of patients. About 34.5% of referred patients had no breast pathology; of these, over 68% had undergone imaging studies requested by the gynecologist. We observed that only 7.1% of referred patients had carcinoma. The percentage of patients in stage I increased from 12.7 to 23.4%. Also, in stage II, there was an increase from 40.3 to 54.1% of those diagnosed. Instead, there was reduction in the number of advanced tumors (stage III) from 40.2 to 15.2%. The results showed that at diagno- sis, the tumors in stages I and II accounted for 77.5% of the cases. These results clearly show that the lack of access and biopsy to confirm the diagnosis are the most important causes of disease progression, because certainly in three or six months, most tumors of patients diagnosed and treated in Stages I and II would progress. The rapid reduction in the number of cases that we have developed allows us to estimate a mortality reduction of 19.8% by the disease. The service model shows an excellent cost effective strategy aimed at institutions with high demands from large Brazilian cities, treating more than 80% of cases of breast cancer, allowing a rapid reduction of mortality rate.