Factors linked to the late diagnosis of breast cancer and the initiation of treatment.

Breast cancer is the first cancer in women in terms of incidence and mortality. In Morocco, it is a public health problem. Its prognosis is strongly linked to the stage at which it is diagnosed. It is a pathology for which diagnosis means are highly developed today, ranging from early detection to the demonstration of infra-clinical lesions, which has markedly improved the prognosis in developed countries. This work aims to identify the factors that lead patients to consult at an advanced stage in our daily practice. It is a retrospective study carried out from January 2018 to December 2018 including 525 patients with breast cancer followed in the medical oncology department of the Mohammed VI University Hospital in Marrakech. The average age was 54. The average time for consultation was 10.3 months. 63% of patients were from rural areas. Delayed diagnosis affected women above 35 years of age (80%). The most common method of detection was self-examination in 74% of cases. Inflammation (2.66%), ulceration (1.14%), signs of metastases (17.14%), and isolated breast nodes (79.4%) were other reasons for consultation. 82.2% of patients were locally advanced at the time of diagnosis. The time for treatment in our study was 3.7 weeks. In our practice, it is the conjunction of ignorance, poverty, socio-cultural habits, and difficult geographical access that are the essential factors in the late diagnosis of breast cancer.