Laboratory Outcomes of Pre and Post Chemotherapy among Breast Cancer Patients

Aims: Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in Guyana, accounting for one in every four cancer diagnosis. Chemotherapy has been medically and scientifically proven to be most effective treatment for many types of cancers. However, there were also severe effects of chemotherapy on biochemistry and hematology functions. Neutropenia is the most serious hematologic toxicity of cancer chemotherapy, often limiting the doses of chemotherapy, the degree and duration of the neutropenia determine the risk of infection. Thus this study identified the significance of blood parameters during chemotherapy among breast cancer patients.

Study Design: Laboratory based descriptive study.

Place and Duration of Study: Sample: Cancer Institute, Georgetown Public Hospital Cooperation, Guyana between 2013 to 2015.

Methodology: Sample: A total of 184 cases diagnosed with breast cancer were included for the study. Mean ± SD was used to measure biochemical and hematological means.

Results: Mean ± SD of the patients age was 54.0±11.2 and BMI 30.7±6.6. Most prevalent breast cancer was ductal cancer (41.3%), followed by infiltrating ductal cancer (26.6%). Stage I cancer (87.2%) was most prevalent than other stages. Most patients were on injection cyclophosphamide (95.1%) and/or injection adriamycin (74.5%). There was a variation noted in the values of the hematological and biochemical parameters. Most hematology and biochemistry parameters exhibited a variation in pre and post chemotherapy.

Conclusion: The patients showed variation in the biochemical and hematological parameters between pre and post absolute neutrophil count and other laboratory parameters due to chemotherapy. This confirms the potential toxicities of certain chemotherapeutic agents to hematological and metabolic functions.