Male breast cancer: A retrospective study comparing survival with female breast cancer

Male breast cancer is a rare disease. The aim of this study was to compare overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in a group of matched males and females with breast cancer. The clinical data and survival status of 42 operable male breast cancer (MBC) cases treated at the Central Hospital of Tai'an from 1982 to 2006 were collected. Each MBC patient recorded in the database was matched with two female breast cancer (FBC) patients. Matching was conducted based on age, year of diagnosis, stage and pathology. SPSS 16.0 software was used for statistical analysis. The Chi-square test was used for the categorical data, the Kaplan-Meier method was applied to analyze survival and the log-rank test was used to compare curves between the groups. P<0.05 was considered to indicate a statistically significant difference. The 42 MBC patients were matched with 84 FBC patients. The mean age at diagnosis was 58.0 +/- 11.3 years for males and 57.1 +/- 10.6 years for females, and the median follow-up time was 64 months (range, 5-262 months) for males and 71 months (range, 29-283 months) for females. Significant differences were identified for tumor location, hormone receptor status, adjuvant chemotherapy and hormone therapy between the two groups. Monofactorial analysis demonstrated that tumor size, lymph node status and AJCC stage were prognostic factors in MBC patients. The 5- and 10-year DFS rates were 61.2 and 40.7% for males, and 68.7 and 43.0% for females, respectively. The Sand 10-year OS rates were 75.3 and 52.3% for males, and 82.9 and 63.2% for females, respectively. In our study, male breast carcinoma patients had a worse prognosis compared to female breast carcinoma patients which may be due to the deficiency of adjuvant chemotherapy and endocrine therapy.