Characteristics and prognosis of breast cancer in younger women.

PURPOSE: Women under 40 years of age comprise a small proportion of patients with breast cancer. Clinical and pathological features of the disease in these patients are different from those in older patients with this type of cancer. In the present study we investigated the clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic factors in young patients with breast cancer.

METHODS

We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 249 consecutive breast cancer patients who were admitted to our department between August 2001 and December 2005. Clinicopathological features were determined both in patients under and over 40 years of age.

RESULTS

106 (42.5%) patients were under and 143 (57.5%) were over 40 years. The mean age was 35.2 years for those under 40 years and 54 for those older than 40 years. At diagnosis, 10.4% of the patients in the younger age group and 7.0% in the older age group had metastasis (p=0.500). Patients in the younger age group exhibited higher estrogen receptor (ER) negativity (48.1 vs. 37.1%) (p=0.425) and a higher percentage of family history of breast cancer (4.7 vs. 2.8%) (p=0.651). Breast cancer in younger women was more frequently associated with other poor prognostic factors such as perineural and/or lymphovascular invasion. The 5-year overall survival was 6.3% for the younger patients and 22.2% for the older ones (p=0.004).

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrates that breast cancer in younger patients has significantly more poor prognostic features compared to older ones.