Breast carcinoma in women age 25 years or less

Abstract

BACKGROUNDAlthough several studies have examined breast carcinoma in young women aged ≤ 35 years at diagnosis, there are only occasional cases reported in very young women aged ≤ 25 years, and, to the authors' knowledge, no series are available. The presentation, tumor biology, behavior, and outcome of breast carcinoma in very young women are not known, and the rarity of breast malignancy within this age group could lead to diagnostic delays.METHODSThe tumor characteristics and survival of 15 women aged ≤ 25 years at the time of diagnosis, have been reviewed and compared with women aged 26–35 years under the care of Guy's Hospital's Breast Unit during the same period of time. Where appropriate, the two groups were individually matched for tumor size (clinical measurement) and histologic grade.RESULTSFifteen cases were examined, with a median follow‐up of 108 months and a median age of 24 years. The median duration of symptoms was 4 weeks, and the median tumor size was 20 mm. Two patients had ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) only, while the other 13 patients had invasive carcinomas, none of which were Grade I. A mastectomy was performed on 8 out of 15 patients (53%). Axillary nodal metastases were present in 4 out of 12 patients (33%). Of the 13 cases of invasive disease, 9 out of 13 patients (69%) experienced recurrence and died of breast carcinoma. Median disease free survival for patients with invasive disease was 86 months. There was no difference in overall survival between the patients aged ≤ 25 years and those aged 26–35, but taken together young women ≤ 35 had a worse prognosis than women between 36 and 65, due to a higher incidence of high grade and estrogen receptor negative tumors.CONCLUSIONSThe current study suggests that among young women with breast carcinoma there is no difference in prognosis between the very young and the young. Despite two thirds of patients being node negative, the high mortality rate indicates a need for an optimal selection of adjuvant therapy among these cases. Cancer 2002;94:606–14. © 2002 American Cancer Society.DOI 10.1002/cncr.10273

Ovarian cancer in younger vs older women: a population-based analysis

“…Younger age has been shown to be a poor prognosticator in breast cancer. Recently, Maggard and others have demonstrated that younger (o35) women with breast cancer have a poorer prognosis owing to higher stage and grade of disease at presentation (Yildirim et al, 2000;Biffl et al, 2001;Xiong et al, 2001;Dubsky et al, 2002;Kothari et al, 2002;Love et al, 2002;Maggard et al, 2003). However, studies on the prognostic implications of age and ovarian cancer are inconclusive.…”

Breast Cancer in Women under 30 is Highly Aggressive with Extremely Low Frequency: a Case Report

“…Breast cancer occurrence is increasing worldwide, with the largest number of cases being reported during perimenopause [1,2]. Conversely, both literature and current practice shows that patients with breast cancer are rare under the age of 30 [1,2,6].…”

“…Conversely, both literature and current practice shows that patients with breast cancer are rare under the age of 30 [1,2,6]. Using as a pretext the "chance" to encounter such a case in the hospital and relating it to the information provided by literature, we attempted to point out some of the peculiarities and paradoxes of the disease course in young women.…”

“…These findings published by the National Cancer Institute 's Surveillance, Epidemiology and Enol Results shows that out of the 77, 368 women diagnosed with breast cancer only 1% were aged between 20 and 29 [1,3]. The statistics provided by the National Cancer Database of the American College of Surgeons indicate a 0.8 % frequency of breast carcinoma occurring in women aged under 30 [9].…”

“…The current paper does not aim to analyze or draw conclusions on the behavior of breast cancer in young and very young (under 30 years old) women, nor is it supposed to do it based on solely one case in the context of extremely low occurrence of the disease in these age [1]. Nevertheless, due to the very occurrence of the case and the related trauma, in conjunction with relatively few papers on the topic, we attempted to point out some of the characteristics of breast carcinoma in the target population, which prove to be a slightly different in comparison to the "classical" data of the other age [2].…”