The Role of Abdominal Ultrasound and |Chest Radiography in Management of Breast Cancer Patients in a Low Resource Country: A Case of Tanzania

Background: Breast cancer is among the commonest cancers affecting women in Tanzania. Most of them seek hospital treatment when the disease has reached an advanced stage. Hence widely available modalities like ultrasound (LUS) and chest radiograph (CXR) can be used to establishmetastasis in newly diagnosed patients. The main objective of this study was to determine the role of abdominal ultrasound and chest radiography in detection of liver and lung metastasis in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients.Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study in which 103 new breast cancer patients attending Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI) were recruited consecutively. All participants were investigated for liver and lung metastases using abdominal ultrasound and chest x-ray respectively.Standardized questionnaires were used to obtain socio-demographic and to document examination findings.Results: Participants were aged between 26 – 77 years, with a mean of 48±11.22. The prevalence of metastasis to the liver and lungs were 18.4% and 20.4% respectively. Majority of patients with breast cancer had locally advanced breast cancer disease that is either TNM stage three (59.2%) or four (32%) disease upon arrival to ORCI.Conclusion: This study has demonstrated a high detection rate of LUS and CXR for liver and lung metastasis in patients with locally advanced breast cancer