Dorsal Growth of Breast Cancer May Correlate with the Prognosis

Summary

We studied whether the growth of breast cancer as shown by ultrasonography (US) relates to prognosis. A total of 193 patients who had a single mass on US and had undergone radical operation between January 1992 and December 1997 were studied. The tumors on US were classified the direction of backward or forward growth. Internal type was defined as the tumors within the mammary glands; ventral type was tumors that grew upward toward the subcutaneous tissue; dorsal type was masses that grew downward toward the retromammary space; and mixed type was masses that grew in both subcutaneous tissues and retromammary spaces. The ventral type was seen in 106 cases, mixed type in 66 cases, internal type in 12 cases, and backward type in 9 cases. Disease-free survival rate (DFS) and overall survival rate (OS) (10 years) of these types were 100%/100% (internal type), 79%/86% (ventral type), 68%/76% (mixed type), and 39%/67% (dorsal type).We concluded that breast cancer tends to grow ventrally rather than dorsally and that the dorsal type showed poorer prognosis than the other types.