Clinicopathologic Characteristics of Male Breast Cancer: A Report of 21 Cases in Radiotherapy Center of Hamedan, Iran

Background: Male breast cancer accounts for less than 1% of all cancer in men and only around 1% of alldiagnosed breast cancer. Despite a significant raise in the last 25 years, it still remains a rare disease. Materialsand
Methods: We conducted a retrospective study from 2004-2011 with 21 male breast cancer patients. We aimedto analyze the epidemiologic data (age, personal and family history), tumor characteristics (size, histological type,location, TNM stage, receptors), surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation therapy, hormonal therapy andsurvival (relapse, follow up, death) who reffered to our center with breast cancer.
Results: The median age was49.2±14.2 years (range 30-83 years). A family history of breast cancer was noted in four cases. The main clinicalcomplaint was a retroareolar mass in 85.7%of patients (n=18). Histologically, 85.7% (n=18)were invasive ductalcarcinoma and 4.7% (n=1) had ductal carcinoma in situ and 9.4% (n=2) had mixed histology including invasivemedullary and ductal carcinoma. Hormonal therapy was delivered to 16 cases (76.1%) due to ER or PR positivity.During median follow up of 30 months (3-84 month), distant metastases were evident in 4 cases (19%). Duringthe follow-up period, only one patient died due to metastatic disease. The mean time to recurrence detection was30 months.
Conclusions: The percentage of cases of male breast cancer is very low compared to breast cancer infemales, explaining why very few investigations have been conducted in Iran. Limited coverage in the literaturemake gender-specific findings difficult so future research of this entity involving multi-institutional cooperationand longer follow up is essential to provide new insights about the biological and clinical factors of this rarecancer.