Abstract:
Objective To investigate the clinicopathological features, molecular subtypes, and prognosis for male breast cancer (MBC).
Methods Clinical data of 135 MBC patients and 377 female breast cancer (FBC) patients with invasive ductal carcinoma not otherwise specified were collected.Differences between the prognostic outcomes of the two groups were compared, and the relationship between clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic significance was analyzed.
Results More MBC patients suffered from centrally located tumors, with mammary areola as the predilection site, than FBC patients.The two groups exhibited significant differences (p=0.001).Male patients had a higher ER frequency and positive PR rate than female patients (P<0.05).The most common molecular subtypes of MBC were Luminal A and Luminal B1, and significant differences were identified for molecular subtypes between MBC and FBC patients (P<0.05).The 5-year and 10-year overall survival rates in MBC patients were 81.3% and 68.1%, and disease-free survival rates were 72.3% and 50.5%, respectively.These values were significantly lower than those of FBC patients in the same-period diagnostici.e., 91.8% and 79.2%(P=0.001), and 82.6% and 60.9%(P=0.003), respectively.Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, pathological stage, HER-2 status, and molecular subtypes affected the prognosis of MBC patients (P<0.05).In multivariate analysis, the tumor size and lymph node metastasis were associated with a poor prognosis (P<0.05).
Conclusion MBC patients experienced a more unfavorable prognosis compared with FBC patients.The most common molecular subtypes of MBC were Luminal A and Luminal B1, which were higher in proportion in MBC patients than in FBC patients.Biological differences contributed to the poor prognosis.Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment are key to improving the prognosis.