Do very young Korean breast cancer patients have worse outcomes?
BACKGROUND
In general, Korean women with breast cancer are younger than white women. We have compared the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis in very young and less young premenopausal Korean women with breast cancer.


METHODS
Of the breast cancer patients treated at the Asan Medical Center in Seoul, Korea, from 1989 to 2002, 381 (9.6%) were younger than 35 years of age (the "very young" group) and 2320 were 35 to 50 years of age (the "less young" group). We retrospectively compared the clinicopathologic factors and survival rates of these two groups.


RESULTS
The very young group with lymph node metastases had poorer 5-year survival (69.9% vs. 82.7%, P = .0063) and disease-free survival (58.1% vs. 74.1%, P < .0001) rates than their older counterparts. In addition, the very young group had more advanced-stage disease (P = .001), higher T stage (P = .001), and more positive lymph nodes (P = .024) than did their older counterparts, as well as higher percentages of estrogen receptor-negative disease (48.2% vs. 42.1%, P = .047), progesterone receptor-negative disease (53.5% vs. 44.1%, P = .002), and grade 3 histology (52.1% vs. 43.5%, P = .011) tumors.


CONCLUSIONS
Compared with older premenopausal Korean women with breast cancer, those younger than 35 years old had a poorer prognosis as a result of a higher rate of recurrence, a later stage at diagnosis, and more aggressive disease. Thus, in Korean breast cancer patients, age younger than 35 years was an independent predictor of recurrence.
Kim
Jeong Kyeung
JK
Department of Surgery, University of Ulsan, College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, 138-040, Korea.
Kwak
Beom Seok
BS
Lee
Jung Sun
JS
Hong
Soo Jung
SJ
Kim
Hee Jeong
HJ
Son
Byung Ho
BH
Ahn
Sei Hyun
SH
D000328:Adult; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000378:metabolism; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone / Q000378:metabolism; D015996:Survival Rate
D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone