Pregnancy and breast cancer

To examine the relationship of pregnancy to survival in patients with breast cancer, we reviewed the records of 120 women under 36 years of age over a ten-year period and found 15 who were pregnant or lactating when breast cancer was diagnosed or who became pregnant after treatment. All 15 had mastectomy for therapy. Four of the ten patients who were pregnant or lactating had positive lymph nodes, as did three of the five who became pregnant later. Mean survival is 40 months in the six living patients who were pregnant or lactating, and 35 months in the four living patients who became pregnant later. Four of the seven patients with positive nodes (57%) are alive at a mean of 55 months after diagnosis. There was no significant relationship between chemotherapy, irradiation, immunotherapy, or ovarian ablation and subsequent survival. Pregnancy did not appear to influence the outcome. Survival in patients with positive nodes slightly exceeded expectation.