Abstract

Male breast cancer is uncommon disease accounting for approximately 1% of all breast cancers. Its rarity may prevent many physicians from seeing its natural history, cause, pathologic features, and pragnosis. Compared with female breast cancer, breast cancer in men accurs in older age groups, manifests in a more advanced state, and produces higher incidence of central location and ulceration. A clinical study was performed to the 14 cases of male breast cancer patients at the department of surgery, Seoul National university in a 14-year span, from Jan. 1981 to Dec. 1994. The results were as fallowings; 1) Prevalent age group was 8th decade(35.7%) 2) Their most common symptom was palpable mass(85.7%) 3) Five patients(35.7%) visited hospital over 1 year had passed 4) There were nine tumors(64.3%) situated in the left breast and eleven tumors(78.6%) were circumareola located 5) According to the TNM staging system, 6 cases(42.9%) were advanced(over stage III) stage breast cancer 6) Curative resections were performed in ten patients(71.4%) the procedures were 2 cases of Radical Mastectomy, 4 cases of Modified Radical Mastectomy, 4 cases of Simple Mastectomy and Axillary node dissection 7) Postoperative adjuvant therapies including multimodality approach were performed in 7 cases of the patients 8) Nine patients were expired, 6 were died of recurrences or metastases of the breast cancer and 3 were the other causes, the median survival period was 44 months. We observed that male breast cancer were detected older and far advanced. So early detection and treatment are important to promote the survival of the male breast cancer patients

• Keywords: Male breast cancer