Ulcerated breast cancer. Patients and outcome

A review of patients presenting with ulcerated breast cancer (38 women between 1976 and 1980) revealed the following. Although almost all women (82%) presented with documentable distant metastases, they were palliated most by eradication of the painful, infected, malodorous ulcer and persistent intact skin for the extent of their survival. The long-term local control rate was 82 per cent for patients who survived longer than one year despite the large underlying primary cancer masses (average = 11.7 cm). Radiation therapy followed by mastectomy was the most frequently used combination. The crude survival rates (one year, 63%; two year, 26%; three year, 19%) approximate those of patients presenting with metastatic disease. Good prognostic signs included estrogen receptor protein found in 89 per cent of the one-year survivors (and only 25% of the less than one-year survivors) and rare histology found in 85 per cent of the one-year survivors (and only 15% of the less than one-year survivors).