Histopathological Feature of Early-Onset Breast Cancer: A Comparative Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies among women. In some reports, it has been specified that the diagnosis of breast cancer at an earlier ages worsens the prognosis; this can be attributed to a combination of factors such as advanced stage of disease and late demonstration. Considering different results in last studies, this study's aim was investigation of breast cancer histopathology in two age groups of women under and above 40 years old.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed on 64 patients with breast cancer referring to hospitals during 2014 and 2015 years. All histopathologic information is collected from patient's cases. Data were compared in two age groups with equal T. Also, the levels of axillary lymph nodes involvement were evaluated in the equal T for both groups.

RESULTS: We evaluated 64 patients, 71.9% of them were over 40 years old and 28.1% were under 40 years of age. The most common type of tumor was invasive ductal carcinoma. Involvement of the axillary lymph nodes in the equal T was significantly higher in patients less than 40 years of age (p 0.005) than patients over 40 years old (T=1 and T=2) (p=0.032 and p=0.05).

CONCLUSION: Our study signified that in equal T rates the level of axillary lymph nodes involvement in patients younger than 40 years old is higher than those older than 40 years of age. Therefore, breast cancer at early ages is associated with a worse prognosis.