Evaluation of General, Pathological, and Radiological Features of Male Breast Cancer

Male breast cancer (MBC) is an infrequent disease and a scarcely researched topic. Since the incidence of male breast cancer is increasing and so far, management advices have been concluded from results of trials in female patients, there has been a growing interest in this field of research.

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the general, radiological and pathological features of MBC patients.

We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of MBC patients who had been referred to breast clinic, Shahid Motahari in Shiraz, Iran, between 2005 and 2018. Data regarding general characteristics of patients such as demographic information, age, and also past history of any cancer, family history of breast cancer, mammogram and ultrasound findings, stage, size and location of tumor, histopathology of tumor, metastasis, treatment modalities and follow-up time were attained by reviewing medical records.

Fifty-one patients with MBC were included with the mean age of 58.4 years. Invasive ductal carcinoma was the most prevalent pathologic type. By use of the Kaplan Meier survival estimate, survival probability of patients for each time interval after diagnosis was calculated. There was a decline over time until about 85 months after diagnosis when it reached a plateau state above 50%. Age, HER2 and metastasis showed to lower the survival time by increasing the hazard ratio. Only 13 patients had mammography and 22 had an ultrasound, which are less than 50% of the total number of patients.

This study showed that there is still unfulfilled need to evaluate MBC in order to find the best management guidelines such as screening in high risk populations, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. Risk factor evaluation, survival time, and diagnostic radiologic modalities have not been well assessed in MBC so far.