title: Treatment outcomes for male breast cancer: a single-centre retrospective case-control study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Male breast cancer (bc) is a rare disease, and the availability of information on treatment outcomes is limited compared with that for female bc. The objective of the present study was to compare disease-free (dfs) and overall survival (os) for men compared with women having early-stage bc.
  
  
  METHODS
  This retrospective case-control study compared men and women treated for stage 0-iiib bc at a single institution between 1981 and 2009. Matching was based on age at diagnosis, year of diagnosis, and stage. Treatment, recurrence, and survival data were collected. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to calculate os and dfs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For the 144 eligible patients (72 men, 72 women), median age at diagnosis was 66.5 years. Treatments included mastectomy (72 men, 38 women), radiation (29 men, 44 women), chemotherapy (23 men, 20 women), and endocrine therapy (57 men, 57 women). Mean dfs was 127 months for women compared with 93 months for men (p = 0.62). Mean os was 117 months for women compared with 124 months for men (p = 0.35). In multivariate analysis, the only parameter that affected both dfs and os was stage at diagnosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This case-control study is one of the largest to report treatment outcomes in early-stage male bc patients treated in a non-trial setting. Male patients received systemic therapy that was comparable to that received by their female counterparts, and they had similar os and dfs. These results add to current evidence from population studies that male sex is not a poor prognostic factor in early-stage breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rushton
authors.affiliation: University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kwong
authors.affiliation: University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Visram
authors.affiliation: The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, Ottawa, ON.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.affiliation: The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Petrcich
authors.affiliation: The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, Ottawa, ON.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dent
keywords: Male breast cancer; outcomes comparison; treatment