Cáncer de mama en el varón: estudio multicéntrico en Aragón durante 27 años

Introduction

Male breast cancer accounts for 1% of all breast cancers. Its low frequency leads to a lack of awareness, resulting in significant diagnostic delays. Additionally, this limits the available evidence, which primarily uses diagnostic-therapeutic algorithms based on women.

Methods

A multicenter, observational, descriptive, retrospective study was conducted in the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain, from 1995 to 2022 including men with a pathological diagnosis of breast cancer. The prevalence, clinical presentation, pathological characteristics and prognosis of this pathology in men were analyzed.

Results

A total of 148 patients were included, one of the largest series available, with a prevalence of 1%. The most common clinical presentation was a palpable retroareolar mass. Invasive ductal carcinoma was the most frequent type (88.89%), and luminal B was the predominant subtype (47.76%). Surgery was the most utilized treatment; mastectomy was performed in 90.34% and AL in 46.89%. At diagnosis, 52.46% had extramammary involvement. The recurrence rate was 24.1%, and the mortality attributed to the disease was 14.6%.

Conclusions

There is a high rate of metastatic involvement at diagnosis, a high percentage of mutilating surgeries, and a high number of recurrences compared to available studies on males. Additionally, a worse prognosis is observed compared to breast cancer in women, despite these tumors having a less aggressive molecular subtype. These findings highlight the importance of conducting studies focused on men to develop specific protocols.