I n a retrospective review of 912 patients with mammary cancer a t the Ellis Fischel State Cancer Hospital (EFSCH), 199 patient records contained two or more gross measurements of a neoplastic focus in the breast, a lymph node, the lung, the chest wall, or other sites. The gross rates of growth were calculated from these measurements a n d correlated with the characteristics of the tumor a n d the hosts. The rates were independent of the anatomical site of the measured carcinoma, marital status, race, tumor size, frequency of lymph node metastasis a t the time of mastectomy, and frequency and site of the postoperative metastasis. Doubling times did correlate directly with the age of the patients, duration of preoperative symptoms, a n d duration of survival after radical mastectomy. T u m o r growth rate can account for some of the clinical characteristics of mammary carcinoma.
E REPORT HERE THE CLINICALLY DETER-mined rates of growth of primary carcinomas of the breast and their metastases, in order to correlate the observed rates with various host and tumor characteristics and to stress the importance of doubling times in the evaluation of the chronological characteristics of patients with mammary carcinoma.
METHODSAmong 912 consecutive female patients with mammary carcinoma who had radical mastectomy performed at the Ellis Fischel State Cancer Hospital (EFSCH), between 1940 and 1960, two or more measurements of the same focus of cancer were recorded on dif-
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