Men's tumor types differ; survival is increasing but not as much as for women, study finds
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Dec. 9, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Men's breast cancer differs in some ways from women's, new research finds.
One important difference is in the rates of survival. The study found that while survival for men with breast cancer has improved, it hasn't kept pace with the strides made in treating breast cancer in women.
"Although we saw a significant improvement in overall survival for male breast cancer patients over time, the prognosis for men with breast cancer has not been improving as much as for women with the disease," Dr. Fatima Cardoso, director of the breast unit at the Champalimaud Cancer Center in Lisbon, Portugal, said in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research.
"This is largely because male breast cancer is a rare disease -- it accounts for just 1 percent of breast cancers -- and we know very little about its biology and how best to treat patients," Cardoso said.
In the new study, Cardoso and her team followed more than 1,800 men with breast cancer. The men were diagnosed between 1990 and 2010 and they were treated at 23 medical centers in nine countries. The average age of men at diagnosis was almost 69 years old, the study reported.
The researchers found that only 77 percent of men got endocrine therapy such as tamoxifen for their cancer when it was indicated. They also found that even though 56 percent of the cancers were diagnosed when the tumors were very small, only 4 percent of the men had breast conserving surgery. Most had a mastectomy, Cardoso found.
Most of the men, 92 percent, had cancer known as estrogen receptor positive, the kind that requires estrogen to grow. In women, 70 percent of breast cancers are ER-positive.
Far fewer of the men's cancers were of the types known as HER2 and triple negative, which occur in women, the researchers found.
After a follow-up of nearly six years on more than 1,000 men, 63 percent were still alive, according to the study.
Cardoso is due to present the findings Dec. 9 at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The symposium is a partnership of the University of Texas Health Science Center, the American Association for Cancer Research and Baylor College of Medicine.
source : Male Breast Cancer Is Different
