Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Seoul National University.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The age of onset of Korean breast carcinoma is younger than that in western countries by some 10 years, thus the criteria of young age in manuscript from western countries cannot reflect the characteristics of young breast cancer properly in Korea.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We studied 290 breast cancer patients, 35 years old or younger retrospectively, from Jan.
1980 to Dec. 1995 in the Department of Surgery, Seoul National University Hospital. The age criteria of 30 and 35 years was utilized to define two groups.
RESULTS: The group(age< or =35) had larger primary tumors, more metastatic lymph nodes, and worse stages than older counterpart(p=0.015, 0.0066, 0.0329 respectively). They had worse disease-free survival but not overall survival(p=0.0312, 0.2427 respectively). The other group(age < or =30) showed significantly worse outcome in overall as well as disease free survival(p=0.0056, 0.0013) compared to the group(age>30). When we compared the group of age< or =30 to that of 31< or = age < or =35, there was statistically significant difference in primary tumor size, axillary nodal status and pathological stage(p=0.023, 0.019, 0.022 respectively).
CONCLUSION: The age of 30 might be better criteria to define young age as prognostic factor rather than age of 35 in Korea.
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