Bilateral breast cancer

Between the years 1972 and 1982, 1,880 women were treated for breast cancer at the Tel-Aviv Medical Center. One thousand two hundred fifteen detailed charts are included in our study. Sixty-six patients (5.4%) were diagnosed as having bilateral breast cancer. The mean age at first tumor diagnosis was 55.1 years. Bilateral breast cancer appears to be more common in nulligravidas and women who have delivered up to two children. In patients where the first tumor was greater than 4 cm in diameter, there was a higher incidence of a second tumor. A total of 65.2% of all patients who developed a second breast tumor had no axillary lymph node metastasis at the time the first breast tumor was diagnosed. There was no correlation between the histological types of the first and second tumors. The longer the woman survived after the first cancer diagnosis, the greater the likelihood of her developing a second tumor; the longer the interval between the diagnosis of the two cancers, the better the survival rate.