Cases of Surgery under Local Anesthesia for Primary Breast Cancer in the Elderly over 75 Years Old

Abstract

We retrospectively reviewed 49 elderly patients with breast cancer aged 75 years or older, who underwent surgery under local infiltration anesthesia due to underlying diseases and other reasons.

The median age of the included patients was 85 years (75-94 years), and the surgical procedures performed included partial mastectomy in 49 cases and total mastectomy in two cases. The median operation time was 42 min (22-103 min), and the amount of intraoperative bleeding was small in all the cases. Postoperative complications occurred in only six cases (12.2%) with mild seromas. Whole breast radiotherapy was performed in only eight patients (17.0% of 47 partially resected breasts), and drug therapy included hormone therapy in 28 patients and none in 21 patients.

Local Recurrence recurrence of the local region was observed in 4 of 51 cases, of all 4 cases did not receive either irradiation norhormone therapy. Further, there was no distant recurrence or death from primary disease. Compared with 390 patients aged 75 years or older who underwent general anesthesia during the same period, the overall survival rate was poor. However, there was no difference in the breast cancer-specific survival rate. Therefore, primary lesion resection under local infiltration anesthesia is an important treatment option for the increasing number of elderly patients with breast cancer.