Bilateral Breast Cancer Revealed by Biopsy of the Opposite Breast

Abstract

The bilaterality of breast cancer is becoming increasingly evident and is generally recognized (Urban 1967, 1969). Not infrequently, one encounters simultaneous clinically apparent bilateral breast cancers. More often, these lesions appear to arise asynchronously. Foote and Stewart (1945) stated: “the most frequent antecedent of cancer in one breast is the history of having had cancer in the opposite breast.” There is mounting evidence that bilateral breast cancer, simultaneous or otherwise, occurs most often in certain patients: in those with a strong family history of breast cancer, particularly patients whose mothers have had bilateral breast cancer before the age of 50; in those with multiple breast cancers in the dominant breast, in patients with in situ lobular carcinoma; and in younger women successfully treated for early localized cancer who have a good prognosis for long survival.