(ChemotherapyAdvisor) – The primary pathologic type of breast cancer in males is invasive ductal carcinoma, a single institution study of patients reported at the 2012 Breast Cancer Symposium has found.
Noting that “male breast cancer is an uncommon disease and the therapy is mainly based on what is known from female breast cancer,” Anke Bergmann, PhD, of the Brazilian National Cancer Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and colleagues investigated its clinicopathologic characteristics and rate of overall survival (OS) based on data from 75 patients treated from 2000 to 2009.
Median age was 64 years (range, 33–86 years). A total of 58 patients (77.3%) had estrogen receptor (ER) positive disease and 47 (62.7%) were progesterone receptor (PR) positive. The majority of patients (76%) had ductal infiltrating carcinoma; of these 57 patients, 51 (68%) underwent surgery.
Continue Reading
At a median follow-up of 43.1 months (range, 2.7–147.8 months), median OS from diagnosis was 97.0 months (95% CI, 53.6–140.4); 5-year OS was 61.7%.
Independent factors associated with increased risk of death were metastasis at diagnosis (HR 18.1; 95% CI, 5.9–55.2), age 65 years or older (HR 4.3; 95% CI, 1.7–10.5), tumor stages ≥IIb (HR 3.5; 95% CI, 1.3–9.7), and smoking (HR 1.6; 95% CI, 1.04–2.6).
