Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Male Breast Cancer: A Retrospective Cohort Study

The survival benefit of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (Neo-CT) among male breast carcinoma (MaBC) remains unclear, and the specific population that can benefit from Neo-CT is also not yet defined. We utilized the data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database and employed Kaplan-Meier analysis; Cox proportional hazards model and binary variable Logistic regression were performed to evaluate the effect of Neo-CT on the therapeutic response and prognosis of MaBC patients. Among the 4171 MaBC subjects included, 194 (4.7%) patients received Neo-CT only (Neo-CT only group), 246 (5.9%) cases received adjuvant chemotherapy and Neo-CT (CT + Neo-CT group); the remaining 3731 (89.5%) cases received postoperative chemotherapy only (CT-only group). Totally, 20 (12.12%) participants achieved pathological complete response (pCR). And patients who achieved a pCR (pCR subgroup) had improved 5-year and 10-year overall survival (OS) (100.0% vs. 79.70% vs. 73.81%, 100.0% vs. 59.12% vs. 28.82%, respectively) and breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) (86.30% vs. 91.49%, 69.04% vs. 83.32%, respectively) in comparison with those in the Non-pCR subgroup. Further binary Logistic regression analysis showed that the achievement of pCR might be related to stage I-II (p = 0.007) and hormone receptor (HR) negative (p = 0.010) disease, and the pCR rate of stage I-II and HR- MaBC patients was 66.67%.