TY - JOUR T1 - Explaining the aggressiveness of breast cancer in sub-Saharan African patients JF - Journal of Clinical Pathology JO - J Clin Pathol SP - 723 LP - 724 DO - 10.1136/jclinpath-2019-206071 VL - 72 IS - 10 AU - Sara Bravaccini AU - Lauro Bucchi AU - Maurizio Puccetti AU - Sara Ravaioli AU - Maria Maddalena Tumedei AU - Patrizia Serra AU - Carla Masini AU - Jackson Kahima AU - Nestory Masalu AU - Dino Amadori Y1 - 2019/10/01 UR - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/72/10/723.abstract N2 - The incidence of breast cancer (BC) in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double between 2016 and 2035. The control of the disease in the region will become an increasingly critical challenge.1 Comprehensive prevention, detection and treatment programmes are lacking; the health infrastructure is insufficient; the technical workforce is limited, and the diagnostic and treatment capacity is poor.2 Over the last 20 years, a pool of Italian cancer research centres, cancer volunteer associations and scientific societies in collaboration with the Tanzanian political and health authorities have created a pathology laboratory (that they considered to be a core element of a cancer care and control programme) and a medical oncology unit at the Bugando Medical Centre (BMC) of Mwanza, the largest referral hospital in the Lake zone of north-western Tanzania. This endeavour is known as the Mwanza Cancer Project.3 Based on the idea that offering scientific tutoring and access to research programmes can increase the capacity building of local healthcare professionals, these have been involved in several research projects under way in Italy. One of these has been designed to perform a comparative biological characterisation of BC from a series of Tanzanian patients and a series of Italian patients.4 For the former, the pathological processing and reporting of surgical specimens have been performed at the pathology laboratory of the BMC, while oestrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and … ER -