Male Breast Cancer: Current Trends—a Tertiary Care Centre Experience

Abstract

Male breast cancer is a rare tumour in all parts of the world. About 1% of all breast cancers occur in men. Occurrence of male breast cancer peaks at age 71 years. Familial cases usually have BRCA2 rather than BRCA1 mutations. Presentation is usually a lump or nipple inversion, but is often late, with more than 40% of individuals having stage III or IV disease. We retrospectively reviewed 25 male patients with breast cancer who came to the HCG Cancer Centre, Ahmedabad between 2014 and 2018, and their demographic details, tumor profile, and radiological, histopathological as well as luminal profile findings were studied. The average age at presentation and detection of male breast cancer was 61.08 years. Incidence of male ca. breast over these 4 years was 4.75/year which had a significant increase compared with our own data in the last 8 years (3/year). Male to female ratio for ca. breast was 1:61. One out of 25 (4%) patients had gynaecomastia. The most common histology was invasive ductal carcinoma-not otherwise specified with none of the patients having lobular carcinoma. Majority of patients were ER/PR positive and HER-2 negative. Male breast cancer is having a rising incidence, which in our study is 1.56%. Males have relatively older age at presentation and stage-by-stage treatment remains the same. Males are more likely to be having prognostically favourable luminal subtypes. Male breast cancer in Indian population is currently experiencing an increasing trend. Improved awareness amongst patients and high index of suspicion by the clinicians along with accurate diagnostic techniques help detect the disease at an earlier stage culminating into prolonged overall and disease-free survival.