Male breast cancer: a 22-year experience

Aims. To carry out a retrospective study of male breast cancer over a 22-ye ar experience. Methods. Data from 121 male patients with breast cancer treated between the years 1972 and 1994 at the Surgical Clinic of Ankara Oncology Hospital wer e reviewed. Distribution of cases according to stage was: 2.5% stage I, 28. 9% stage II, 55.4% stage III and 13.2% stage IV (AJCC staging method). The surgical treatment for 23 of the patients (19%) was Halsted's radical maste ctomy or modified radical mastectomy. Seventy-three cases (60.3%) had total mastectomy without axillary node dissection and 25 (20.7%) had local tumou r excision only. Seventy-two of 121 patients had adjuvant treatment. Results. In general the prognosis of men with breast cancer was worse than fur women. In the analysis of patients in stages I, II and III-A (operable disease group), the 5-year survival rates were 73% in axillary node-negativ e patients and 77% in those with tumours sized under 5 cm (P<0.001). In the se patients, univariate analysis demonstrated that axillary status (relativ e risk of death in positive status vs. negative = 3.6), tumour size (relati ve risk in T-3 vs. T1+2 = 2), surgical treatment type (relative risk in sim ple mastectomy vs. radical mastectomy = 1.9) and adjuvant chemotherapy (rel ative risk if no chemotherapy = 1.4) were statistically significant factors associated with survival. Conclusions. Cox's regression model revealed that axillary status, tumour s ize and type of surgical treatment were the most important independent prog nostic factors (P<0.001).