Abstract
Background: Pregnancy associated breast cancer (PABC) is a rare entity of breast cancer. It is defined as breast cancer occurring during pregnancy or within 12 months from end of pregnancy. Though rare, it represents a very challenging situation to both the physician and patient. This retrospective study is an attempt to focus on PABC cases presenting at our institute regarding their personal, disease characteristics and type of treatment received. Methods: This is a retrospective study conducted at Kasr-Al-Ainy oncology center “NEMROCK”. The files of female patients diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 40 in the period from January 2005 to December 2014 were retrospectively reviewed. A comparison has been conducted between PABC cases and non-pregnant cases concerning personal and disease characteristics, modality of treatment and outcomes. Results: This study included a total of 175 patients 40 years old or younger, among them 40 were PABC cases. Twenty five percent of PABC presented with distant metastasis at first presentation while only 11.6% of the non-pregnant patients presented with metastasis (P value 0.039). Time from onset of symptoms till breast cancer diagnosis was more than 6 months in 55.6% of PABC cases in comparison to 36.3% in non-pregnant cases (P value 0.043). Concerning treatment; 32.4% of PABC cases received neoadjuvant chemotherapy while 20.7% of non-pregnant patients received it (P value 0.027). There was no statistical difference in personal and disease characteristics between pregnant and non-pregnant patients including family history, pathological subtypes, stage, grade and biological subtypes. There was no statistically significant difference in disease free survival between PABC cases and non-pregnant ones (P value 0.497). Conclusions: PABC is associated with a late diagnosis. Although PABC patients present at later stages than non-pregnant ones and the use of neoadjuvant treatment is higher in pregnant cases, the outcome of patients with PABC is comparable to that of non-PABC of matched age. Legal entity responsible for the study: Kasr alainy department of oncology Funding: None Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
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