Very young breast cancer in a referral center in Tehran, Iran; review of 55 cases aged 25 or less throughout 33 years.

BACKGROUND Breast cancer is mostly the disease of postmenopausal women but very young affected women are seen more than occasionally in developing countries. We reviewed our cases of very young breast cancer in order to help in better understanding of such cases. MATERIALS AND METHODS The records of patients 25 years of age or less who had been admitted for breast cancer surgery in the Cancer Institute of Tehran from 1979 to 2012 were reviewed and relevant data were extracted. RESULTS From 5,265 cases of breast cancer, 62 patients had 25 years of age or less. There were 55 cases of breast adenocarcinoma, all female. More than 78% of the patients had presented with a palpable mass, the family history was positive in 2% of cases, and about 94% of the histologies were invasive ductal carcinoma. Gestational breast cancer constituted 10% of the cancers; another 10%were bilateral. The median size of the tumors was 5.72 centimeters, 63.2% of them had axillary lymphatic involvement, and more than half were negative for hormone receptors. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows an incidence of 1.17% for very young breast cancer and a 10% rate of bilaterality which probably warrants special guidelines for contralateral screening. Cancer stage and features were poor in comparison with breast cancer in all ages.