Clinicopathological Profile and Treatment Outcomes of Bilateral Breast Cancer: A Study from Tertiary Cancer Center in South India
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Indian J Med Paediatr Oncol 2018; 39(01): 58-61
DOI: DOI: 10.4103/ijmpo.ijmpo_56_17
Abstract
Background: Bilateral breast cancer (BBC) is a rare clinical entity with limited data regarding clinicopathological aspects and treatment guidelines. Materials and Methods: This was an observational study of patients diagnosed with BBC from August 2012 to July 2014. Synchronous breast cancers (SBCs) was defined as two tumors diagnosed within an interval of 6 months and metachronous breast cancer (MBC) as second cancer diagnosed after 6 months. Results: Out of 750 breast cancer patients seen during a 2-year period, 35 had BBC. Ten patients were diagnosed as SBC whereas 25 patients as MBC. Among patients with MBC, the average time for development of contralateral breast cancer was 5 years. In 8 patients, the contralateral breast cancer was detected mammography whereas rest 27 patients were detected by clinical breast examination. At a median follow-up of 24 months, 23 (66%) patients were disease free, 9 (26%) patients had disease relapse, and 3 (8%) patients succumbed to the progressive disease. Conclusions: Every patient with breast cancer should be regularly followed up with clinical breast examination at a more frequent interval. The role of frequent clinical breast examination appears more than mammography especially beyond 5 years for early detection of contralateral breast cancer.
Keywords
Bilateral breast cancer - metachronous breast cancer is - synchronous breast cancer
Publication History
23 June 2021
A-12, 2nd Floor, Sector 2, Noida-201301 UP, India
Abstract
Background: Bilateral breast cancer (BBC) is a rare clinical entity with limited data regarding clinicopathological aspects and treatment guidelines. Materials and Methods: This was an observational study of patients diagnosed with BBC from August 2012 to July 2014. Synchronous breast cancers (SBCs) was defined as two tumors diagnosed within an interval of 6 months and metachronous breast cancer (MBC) as second cancer diagnosed after 6 months. Results: Out of 750 breast cancer patients seen during a 2-year period, 35 had BBC. Ten patients were diagnosed as SBC whereas 25 patients as MBC. Among patients with MBC, the average time for development of contralateral breast cancer was 5 years. In 8 patients, the contralateral breast cancer was detected mammography whereas rest 27 patients were detected by clinical breast examination. At a median follow-up of 24 months, 23 (66%) patients were disease free, 9 (26%) patients had disease relapse, and 3 (8%) patients succumbed to the progressive disease. Conclusions: Every patient with breast cancer should be regularly followed up with clinical breast examination at a more frequent interval. The role of frequent clinical breast examination appears more than mammography especially beyond 5 years for early detection of contralateral breast cancer.
Keywords
Bilateral breast cancer - metachronous breast cancer is - synchronous breast cancer
Introduction
Bilateral breast cancer (BBC) is a rare clinical diagnosis. There are relatively less data pertaining to the clinicopathological profile, treatment recommendations, and outcome of patients with BBC. Overall the incidence of BBC is 1.4% of all breast cancer reported in various studies.[1],[2],[3],[4] The incidence of synchronous breast cancer (SBC) is 0.7% 3% whereas that of metachronous breast cancer is (MBC) 5%.[2],[3],[5] This wide variation in the incidence may be attributable to varying time span used to define BBC. Different groups have defined SBC as two tumors occurring within an interval of 1 month,[6] 2 months,[7] 3 months,[8] 6 months,[9] or 1 year.[10] Controversies also exist about the origin of second cancer (metastatic spread or independent primary) and its prognostic significance. There is a two to six fold increased risk of developing contralateral breast cancer in women with first primary as compared to the general population.[11] There is an increasing incidence of BBC due to improved diagnostic techniques, longer survival, and patient education.[1],[12] The prognosis of BBC has been reported to be worse than that of unilateral breast cancer (UBC)[13],[14],[15],[16] and the biological aspects, as well as the optimum therapy, are still remains controversial.[17],[18] The present study was done to analyze the clinicopathological characteristics and treatment outcome at a tertiary cancer center in South India.
Materials And Methods
This was an observational study carried out at a tertiary cancer center in South India. Patients diagnosed with BBC in the department of medical oncology were taken into the study. The case files of all patients diagnosed with breast cancer were reviewed from August 2012 to July 2014. Patients diagnosed with BBC were taken up for the study and treatment outcomes as well as the follow-up data were recorded. Two tumors diagnosed within an interval of 6 months was defined as SBCs whereas MBC as second cancer diagnosed after 6 months. The analysis of patient's characteristic including age, pre-/post-menopausal status, family history of breast/ovarian/other cancer, mode of detection, and histological features among the two breasts was done. Patients were followed up for treatment outcomes and disease recurrence. Those not on regular follow-up were contacted telephonically.
Results
A total of 750 breast cancer patients were seen during 2 years, out of which 35 (4.6%) had BBC. Ten patients (28.6%) were diagnosed as SBC whereas 25 patients (71.4%) were diagnosed as MBC. The median age at presentation for BBC was 42 years (range: 24?60 years). All the patients diagnosed with BBC in this study were women. The median age of menarche and first child birth was 13 and 23 years, respectively. Average number of children was 2.3, with the maximum number of children being 5. Thirty-two patients gave a history of breast feeding their child, and 3 were nulliparous. A positive family history of breast cancer was seen in 3 patients only. Median BMI was 24. At the time of diagnosis, 23 were premenopausal and 12 were postmenopausal. Among patients with MBC, the average time for development of contralateral breast cancer was 5 years (range 8 months? 98 months). In 8 patients, the contralateral breast cancer was detected by mammography whereas the rest 27 were detected clinically. Pathologically, out of 70 tumors, 66 were invasive ductal carcinomas (IDC), 2 medullary carcinoma, and 2 poorly differentiated carcinoma. Fifty-seven tumors were of grade 3 and 13 were grade 2. Out of 70 tumors, 26 were triple negative, 38 estrogen receptor (ER)/progesterone (PR) positive, and 16 HER2 positive. The discordance of ER, PR, and HER 2 between right and left breast tumor were seen in 9 (25%), 12 (34%), and 11 (31%) patients, respectively. The clinical and pathological characteristics have been shown in [Table 1] and [Table 2], respectively.
Variable |
Synchronous |
Metachronous |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
First tumor |
Second tumor |
First tumor |
Second tumor |
|
Median age at diagnosis in years (range) |
39.5 (24-57) |
45 (24-60) |
||
Time interval between two tumor in months |
0 |
60 (8-98) |
||
Stage |
||||
I |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
II |
3 |
2 |
6 |
9 |
III |
6 |
5 |
18 |
10 |
IV |
1 |
1 |
0 |
4 |
Variable |
Synchronous |
Metachronous |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
First tumor |
Second tumor |
First tumor |
Second tumor |
|
IDC ? Invasive ductal carcinomas |
||||
Histological type |
||||
IDC |
10 |
10 |
25 |
21 |
Medullary |
2 |
|||
Poorly differentiated |
2 |
|||
Grade |
||||
I |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
II |
3 |
1 |
5 |
4 |
III |
7 |
9 |
20 |
21 |
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