This study assesses the delay of mastectomy "time from the first consultation of a doctor to the time of mastectomy" and its relationship with the stage of the disease among Iraqi women with breast cancer. A study was carried out on (113) women who were referred to the Outpatient Clinic of the Oncology Teaching Hospital and the Iraqi National Cancer Research Center, University of Baghdad, for the period from 2012 to 2016.Patients' age range between (40-49) years comprised (60.2%) of cases, and showed advanced tumor stage (62.96%)of stage III. It was found that infiltrating ductal carcinoma was the most common type of breast cancer that found in (77%) of cases.
Mostly there was no delay of mastectomy for more than one month delay in (36.3%) of patients, while other patient's delay periods of mastectomy were distributed as : 1-3 months delay in (20.3%), 4-6 months delay in (14.2%),7-9 months delay in (8.8%), 9-12 months delay in (0.8%) and 12 months delay in(8.8%) of the patients. The percentage of the residual patients which had delay longer than one year, (2-9 years delay), was (10.6%) patients. Most patients (73%) were of stage III while others (17.6%) were of stage I, and (7.4%) were of stage II. Statically, correlation coefficient between the delay of mastectomy and the stages of the disease was significant with stage III .
Results showed that (short time delay) was associated with higher stage of the disease,(79%) of patients were of stage III, while (53% ) of patients with long time delay had stage III . It seemed to be that long time delay correlated with lower stages at the time of identification which goes with most of the published papers.
Results showed that the time delay of mastectomy seems not to be a serious problem in Iraq during the period of the current study. Only few studies are carried out in this field especially in the city of Baghdad, therefore, Further studies are required to explore the factors that are associated with different types of delay.
