Young Women with Early-Stage Breast Cancer Treated with Upfront Surgery: Overview of Oncological Outcomes

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer in young women aged < 40 years is rare and often aggressive with less favorable survival rates. The lack of systematic screening, later stage at diagnosis, and a more aggressive disease biology may all contribute to their poor prognosis. Data on the best management remain conflicting, especially those regarding surgical management, either breast-conserving or mastectomy. To our knowledge, there are limited studies surrounding the treatment of young women with early breast cancer, and this analysis evaluated the oncological outcomes for those patients who underwent surgery upfront. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study including 130 young women with early breast cancer from a total of 373 consecutive patients treated with upfront surgery between January 2016 and December 2021 at our institution. Local recurrence-free survival (LR-FS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS) were evaluated. Results: The median follow-up was 61.1 months (range, 25–95). A total of 92 (70.8%) patients underwent breast-conserving surgery, while 38 (29.2%) patients underwent conservative mastectomy with immediate implant breast reconstruction. In total, 8 of 130 patients (6.2%) developed a local recurrence in the treated breast, an7 (5.4%) patients presented distant metastasis. Overall, two (1.6%) patients died due to breast cancer recurrence. Conclusions: The results of our study interestingly support breast-conserving surgery in young patients with early-stage breast cancer. While appropriate breast-conserving surgery can achieve favorable oncological outcomes and can always be considered a valid alternative to conservative mastectomy in upfront surgery, a younger age at diagnosis should never be used alone to choose the type of surgery.