Therapy and survival in male breast carcinoma: A retrospective analysis of50 cases

The relationship between therapy and overall survival was retrospectively i nvestigated in 50 patients with primary male breast carcinoma. Forty-five h ad radical or modified radical mastectomy and 5 simple mastectomy. Thirty-f ive received adjuvant post-operative therapy, including radiation, hormone and chemotherapy, given separately or in combination. The mean follow-up pe riod was 67 (range, 1-230) months. The median survival was 33 months for pa tients receiving surgery alone and 86 months for those who also had adjuvan t therapy (p=0.003). No difference in survival was found between simple or radical/modified radical mastectomy, nor among the various types of adjuvan t therapy. Adjuvant therapy was most effective in large size, node positive and poorly differentiated tumors, and retained independent prognostic sign ificance in multivariate analysis. With the limitation due to the small num ber of cases, our data suggest that adjuvant therapy may improve survival i n males with cancer of the breast.