Prognosis of mammary carcinoma in young women

One hundred and sixty-two women with carcinoma of the breast, age 40 years or younger, were treated from 1950 to 1969. Mammary cancer is not uncommon in this age group. The 5 year survival rate among our operable patients was about 50 percent. The 5 year survival rate among patients 20 to 35 years of age was slightly higher than that in patients 36 to 40 years old. In stage B and more advanced breast cancer in young women, the outlook was poorer than in women 41 years and older. When axillary involvement is present during gestation or in the immediate postpartum period, the prognosis is especially poor. Young women have an unusually high proportion (35 percent) of low-grade, infrequently metastasizing tumors, such as medullary, intraductal, papillary, and lobular carcinomas. The presence of cancer in the axillary nodes at operation is the most important factor affecting prognosis in mammary cancer. From this study we can see no reason to consider carcinoma of the breast in young women a more lethal disease than that seen in their older counterparts.