title: Breast cancer in women aging 35 years old and younger: The Egyptian National Cancer Institute (NCI) experience.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim is to identify the epidemiological and clinicopathological features associated with young breast cancer (BC) patients and to discuss factors affecting tumor recurrence and DFS.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective analysis was conducted based on medical records from young females patients aged ≤35 years with pathologically confirmed primary breast cancer treated during 2008-2010 at NCI. Cases with non invasive cancer and non carcinoma histology are excluded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 5408 cases diagnosed with breast cancer, 554 were young. Four hundred & fifty eight patients representing 9.2% were within our inclusion criteria. Almost half of the patients (45.9%) presented with stage III. Axillary nodes involvement was in 63.9%, 83.3% were grade 2. More than one quarter of tumors was hormone receptors negative (28.8%) & Her2 was over-expressed in 30%. Mastectomy was offered in 72% while conservative breast surgery in 26%, 69.2% received chemotherapy either adjuvant, neoadjuvant or both, 82.5% received adjuvant radiotherapy, 68.6% received hormonal therapy. Metastatic disease developed in 51.3%, with 31% having more than one site of metastases. After a median follow up period of 66 months, the median DFS of patients was 60 months. The median DFS was significantly shorter among patients with positive lymph nodes (P < 0.0001), ER negative disease (P = 0.045) and stage III disease (P < 0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Breast cancer in young women is aggressive from the time of diagnosis. Our results provide baseline data of young BC in the Middle East & North Africa region; thus, contributing to future epidemiological and hospital-based researches.
authors: Medical Oncology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. Electronic address: amiradd@yahoo.com.
authors: A D
authors: AD
authors: Darwish
authors: Medical Oncology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors: A M
authors: AM
authors: Helal
authors: Biostatistics & Epidemiology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors: N H
authors: NH
authors: Aly El-Din
authors: Medical Oncology, Beni Suef University, Egypt.
authors: L L
authors: LL
authors: Solaiman
authors: Radiation Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Amin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001365:Axilla; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D004534:Egypt / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology; D008408:Mastectomy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000032:analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human
keywords: Breast cancer; Clinicopathological features; Egypt; Middle East; Young patients