The molecular and clinicopathologic characteristics of bilateral breast cancer.

In this study, we compared the clinicopathologic characteristics between the bilateral breast cancer (BiBC) and unilateral breast cancer (UBC) and investigated the role of CXC chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) in BiBC. 48 BiBC and 1650 UBC were studied. We found BiBC patients were associated with family history of cancer, invasive lobular histology in the first tumor and an advanced nodal status as compared with UBC patients with. Survival analysis indicated that BiBC was not associated with impaired survival. The time interval between the development of first breast cancer and the contralateral cancer did not correlate with the prognosis. Patients with BiBC were more likely to have bone metastasis (P = 0.011) and visceral metastasis (P < 0.001) than those with UBC. However, CXCR4 was not found in any association with poor clinical outcome and increasing visceral metastasis in BiBC patients.