Aims/purpose: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide, with nearly 2.1 million new cases diagnosed in 2018 The incidence of breast cancer has been increasing worldwide and in Africa it is currently the most common cancer in women. The exact figure of breast cancer cases in Ethiopia is not known but studies show that its incidence has been increasing over the past decades. This study has sought to investigate the prevalence of breast cancer in Jimma University Medical Center, which is the sole provider for pathology services in southwestern Ethiopia serving around 20 million people Methods: Medical records of patients who underwent a diagnostic procedure Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology, (FNAC) over a period of five years from September 2013 to July 2018 were reviewed for the study. Subsequently the medical records of a subset of patients who underwent FNAC specifically for a breast complaint were also considered. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire, compiled and analyzed using SPSS version 22. Results: A total of 698 patients underwent FNAC for breast complaints during the study period. Fifteen cases were excluded due to incompleteness of data. From the remaining 683 cases, 598 (89%) and 75 (11%) were females and males respectively. The age of the participants ranged from 8 to 80 years with a mean age of 32 years (standard deviation ± 13 years). Diagnostic outcome was classified into five categories: benign without atypia in 447(65.5%) cases, benign with atypia in 6(0.9%) cases, inflammatory lesions in 142(20.8%) cases, suspicious for malignancy in 3(0.4 %) of the cases and malignant in 73(10.7%) cases. The records of the remaining 11(1.6%) cases were deemed to be non-conclusive. Conclusion: there was an increasing trend of breast cancer cases in the study area over subsequent years. The highest prevalence of breast cancer was noted in women who were in their sixth and seventh decade of life. Patients with breast cancer wait a significant amount of time before seeking health care and more than half of the cases come with features of locally advanced cancer.

Keywords: Breast cancer, FNAC, Jimma