PURPOSE: In Korea, breast cancer is the third most common cancer in female following uterine cervix cancer, stomach cancer, and the incidence is increasing year by year.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: In 1997, the Korean Breast Cancer Society collected the data of new breast cancer patients who were treated at 35 university hospitals and 16 general hospitals nationwidely.
RESULTS: Total patients were 4,168 cases, female of 4,149 (99.5%) and male of 19 (0.5%) cases. Age distribution showed that there were 2 cases (0.05%) in 10~19 years of age, 109 cases (2.6%) in 20~29 years, 878 cases (21.1%) in 30~39 years, 1,504 cases (36.1%) in 40~49 years, 1,090 cases (26.1%) in 50~59 years, 431 cases (10.3%) in 60~69 years, 128 cases (3.1%) in 70~79 years, 25 cases (0.6%) in 80 years or above, 1 case of unknown. A radical mastectomy was performed in 50 cases (1.2%), a modified radical mastectomy in 3,094 cases (74.2%), a simple mastectomy m 114 cases (2.7%), a breast conserving surgery in 740 cases (17.8%), segmentectomy or excision in 86 cases (2.1%), biopsy or etc.
in 81 cases (1.9%), and unkown in 3 cases (0.1%). According to the TNM staging system, there were 188 (4.8%) with stage 0, 849 (21.7%) with stage I, 1,344 (34.3%) with stage IIA, 810 (20.7%) with stage IIB, 415 (10.6%) with stage IIIA, 106 (2.7%) with stage IIIB, and 83 (2.1%) with stage IV.
CONCLUSION: We, all the members of the Korean Breast Cancer Society believe that it is very important to join the nationwide collection of Korean breast cancer data since 1996 when the first nationwide baseline data was reported, and we think that we have been accomplishing the purposes of study, which is to report the yearly natiowide data of Korean breast cancer, and to compare our data with those of other countries. |