Abstract
One-hundred and eight young women, aged 35 years or less, have been treated for operable breast carcinoma, except bilateral carcinomas, in our department. These patients were investigated clinicopathologically in terms of the background factors and surgical results comparing to the patients over 35 years old. Breast carcinomas in youngs were characterized by: the large tumor in size; frequent occurrence in pregnant or lactating period; high rate of biopsy performed; and high rate of positive lymph node involvement, compared to the other age group. As a whole, the crude survival rate in the young group was slightly, but not significantly, worse than that in the old. An improvement in surgical results was observed in patients submitted to operation after 1980, especially in an early stage. No significant difference between the two age groups was noted in the incidence by histological types of the tumors, but prognosis of scirrhous carcinomas in youngs was significantly poorer than the other. From the above, we can conclude that appropriate selection of opeartive procedure and postoperative adjuvant therapy according to clinical stage is necessary for the young patients as well as for not-young ones. Especially potent postoperative adjuvant therapy and strict follow-up should not be lacked for scirrhous carcinomas in youngs.
