Breast cancer in women aging 35 years old and younger: The Egyptian National Cancer Institute (NCI) experience

Abstract

ObjectiveThe aim is to identify the epidemiological and clinicopathological features associated with young breast cancer (BC) patients and to discuss factors affecting tumor recurrence and DFS. Patients & methodsA retrospective analysis was conducted based on medical records from young females patients aged ≤35 years with pathologically confirmed primary breast cancer treated during 2008–2010 at NCI. Cases with non invasive cancer and non carcinoma histology are excluded. ResultsOf the 5408 cases diagnosed with breast cancer, 554 were young. Four hundred & fifty eight patients representing 9.2% were within our inclusion criteria. Almost half of the patients (45.9%) presented with stage III. Axillary nodes involvement was in 63.9%, 83.3% were grade 2. More than one quarter of tumors was hormone receptors negative (28.8%) & Her2 was over-expressed in 30%. Mastectomy was offered in 72% while conservative breast surgery in 26%, 69.2% received chemotherapy either adjuvant, neoadjuvant or both, 82.5% received adjuvant radiotherapy, 68.6% received hormonal therapy. Metastatic disease developed in 51.3%, with 31% having more than one site of metastases. After a median follow up period of 66 months, the median DFS of patients was 60 months. The median DFS was significantly shorter among patients with positive lymph nodes (P < 0.0001), ER negative disease (P = 0.045) and stage III disease (P < 0.0001). ConclusionBreast cancer in young women is aggressive from the time of diagnosis. Our results provide baseline data of young BC in the Middle East & North Africa region; thus, contributing to future epidemiological and hospital-based researches.