Comparison of Clinical Characteristics Between Benign Borderline and Malignant Phyllodes Tumors of the Breast

Abstract

Background: Phyllodes tumors of the breast are rare fibroepithelial lesions, so relatively little is known aboutthis disease entity. The present study was designed to identify differences in clinical features between benignborderline and malignant phyllodes tumors. Materials and
Methods: Data from 246 women with phyllodestumors of the breast treated in Cancer Hospital Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences between 2002 and 2012were collected and analyzed, including age at presentation, age at treatment, course, size of primary tumor,location, histological type, type of surgery and treatment, local recurrence, distant metastasis, fibroadenomahistory, disease-free survival and number of mitosis per 10hpf. There are 125 (55%) benign, 55 (24%) borderlineand 47 (21%) malignant tumors.
Results: In univariate analysis, average age at presentation, average age attreatment, size of primary tumor, ulceration or not, type of primary surgery, distant metastasis and number ofmitosis per 10 hpf turned out to be statistically different among the three PT types (p=0.014, 0.018, <0.000, 0.003,<0.000, 0.001 and <0.000, respectively), while recurrence and disease-free survival (DFS) demonstrated trendsfor statistical significance (P =0.055 and 0.060, respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed distant metastasisand excision were significantly different in benign, borderline and malignant phyllodes tumors of the breast(p=0.041 and 0.018, OR=0.061 and 0.051). At the same time, size of primary tumor with p=0.052 tended to bedifferent between groups (OR=1.127). However, age at treatment, ulceration and DFS showed no statisticallysignificant variation (p=0.400, 0.286 and 0.413, respectively).
Conclusions: Benign borderline and malignantphyllode tumors have different distant metastasis risk, different primary tumor size and different surgicalprocedures, and malignant PTs are more likely to be bigger and to metastasize.

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