Breast Cancer in Young Women: Experience from a Tertiary Care Hospital of Coastal India

Context and Aim: Breast cancers are relatively rare among young women amounting up to 6% of all breast carcinoma cases reported in that age group. In younger age groups, breast can- cers, though, have a more aggressive behavior and poorer outcome in comparison to patients in the elderly age groups. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the histopathological characteristics of breast carcinomas reported in patients lesser than 40 years of age. Materials and Methods: Mastectomy specimens of carcinoma breast received at the Department of Pathology in a tertiary care hospital for a period of 2 years from January 2014 to December 2015 were included in the study. The histopathological slides were reviewed and clinical data was collected from the archival records and compared. Statistical Analysis Used: Statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS statistics 17 (Chicago, USA). Various tumor characteristics were correlated with the morphological features and the other clinico-pathologic data using Chi-square value (χ²), paired t-test and Fischer’s test. p<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: IDC-NOS: Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma-Not otherwise specified was found to be the most common variant of breast carcinoma in the younger age groups followed by invasive lobu- lar carcinoma and mucinous carcinoma while stage III was the commonest stage reported in the younger age groups as against the elderly age groups wherein stage II was found to be commoner (p=0.006). Conclusion: The results of the present study revealed a more aggressive and advanced stages of breast carcinomas cases reported in the younger age groups.