Male Versus Female Breast Cancers

2003 ◽  
Vol 127 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Muir ◽  
R. Kanthan ◽  
S. C. Kanthan

Abstract Context.—The rate of male breast cancer is a small fraction of that observed in females, thus severely limiting our understanding of the pathogenesis of this condition. It remains unclear whether the biological behavior and tumor progression associated with male breast cancer parallel that of the female form. Objectives.—To evaluate the immunohistochemical profile of male breast carcinomas and to compare this profile with that of stage-matched female breast cancers. Design.—Seventy-five cases of primary male breast cancer were identified using the records of the Saskatchewan Cancer Foundation over a period of 26 years (1970–1996). Fifty-nine of these cases had formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue blocks available for the purposes of this study. All cases were reviewed and a standardized modified Bloom-Richardson grading criterion was applied. Estrogen receptor status, progesterone receptor status, c-Erb-B2 expression, p53 expression, and Bcl-2 expression were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Results from 240 consecutive cases of stage-matched female breast cancers analyzed in the same laboratory were used as a standard set for comparison. Results.—Male breast cancers tended to be high grade (85% grade 3) in comparison with the female breast cancers (50% grade 3). In descriptive analysis across all stages of disease, male carcinomas were more frequently estrogen receptor positive (81% vs 69%) than their female counterparts. Despite their high grade, they were less likely to overexpress p53 (9% vs 28%) and Erb-B2 (5% vs 17%) than the female counterparts. There was no significant difference in either progesterone receptor (63% vs 56%) or Bcl-2 (79% vs 76%) overexpression. Stratified analysis by stage-matched controls showed no statistically significant differences among the men and women with stage I disease. However, in stage II–matched samples, statistically significant differences were observed between the 2 groups. The male cancers were more likely to overexpress estrogen receptor (81.6% vs 64.4%, P = .04), progesterone receptor (71.1% vs 47.5%, P = .01), and Bcl-2 (78.9% vs 69.4%, P = .20). They also showed statistically significant lower expression of p53 (7.9% vs 36.3%, P = .001) and Erb-B2 (5.3% vs 23.8% P = .01). Conclusion.—Male breast cancers display distinct immunophenotypic differences from those occurring in women, implying a different pathogenesis in the evolution and progression of this disease. Such differences may play key roles in therapeutic management, warranting different treatment strategies in comparison to female breast cancers.

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (18_suppl) ◽  
pp. 21180-21180
Author(s):  
T. Martin Gomez ◽  
B. Torio ◽  
I. Ruiz ◽  
F. Arranz ◽  
A. Arizcun

21180 Background: Recently, inmunophenotypic characterization methods have allowed identification of female breast carcinomas into separate groups showing different behaviour and response to therapy: luminal A phenotype (RE +, HER2-neu - ), luminal B (RE +, HER2- neu + ), basal like (RE -, HER2-neu - ). In this study, we used immunohistochemistry to investigate the inmunophenotypic profile distribution of male breast cancer. Methods: all the male breast cancers were obtained from the files of the Departments of Pathology of Hospital Río Carrión in Palencia, Spain, since 1996. A total of 9 cases were reviewed to confirm the diagnosis and to characterize each tumour. The following CK immunohistochemistry was performed: 8/18 and 5 (Dako, Carpinteria, CA, USA) in a Dako autostainer. ER was interpreted as positive if > 10% of the cells were staining. Normal skin and tonsils were used as positive controls for the CK and a known breast cancer for the ER immunohistochemistry. Results: five cases expressed RE and were HER2-neu negative, so they have a luminal-A phenotype. The four cases that expressed the luminal-B pehnotype expressed RE and HER2-neu; we demonstrated gene amplification of the HER-neu gene using fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH) in those cases. Respect the CKs profile, all cases were positive for CK 8/18 and negative with CK 5, vimentin and p63, characteristic of luminal-like CK expression profile, according wiht the literature. Conclusions: this is the first case series of male breast cancer patients that provides inmunophenotypic profile data on this rare disease in only one center in Spain. We comunicate that the vast majority of these tumours express the phenotype of luminal-like CKs. None of our patients were basal-like tumours. The percentage expression of Her-2 parallels the finding in female breast cancers and this should be analysed for its predictive significance, according to new specific biological treatments. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. Anderson ◽  
Ismail Jatoi ◽  
Julia Tse ◽  
Philip S. Rosenberg

Purpose Because of its rarity, male breast cancer is often compared with female breast cancer. Patients and Methods To compare and contrast male and female breast cancers, we obtained case and population data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program for breast cancers diagnosed from 1973 through 2005. Standard descriptive epidemiology was supplemented with age-period-cohort models and breast cancer survival analyses. Results Of all breast cancers, men with breast cancer make up less than 1%. Male compared with female breast cancers occurred later in life with higher stage, lower grade, and more estrogen receptor–positive tumors. Recent breast cancer incidence and mortality rates declined over time for men and women, but these trends were greater for women than for men. Comparing patients diagnosed from 1996 through 2005 versus 1976 through 1985, and adjusting for age, stage, and grade, cause-specific hazard rates for breast cancer death declined by 28% among men (P = .03) and by 42% among women (P ≈ 0). Conclusion There were three intriguing results. Age-specific incidence patterns showed that the biology of male breast cancer resembled that of late-onset female breast cancer. Similar breast cancer incidence trends among men and women suggested that there are common breast cancer risk factors that affect both sexes, especially estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer. Finally, breast cancer mortality and survival rates have improved significantly over time for both male and female breast cancer, but progress for men has lagged behind that for women.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. R27-R34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tesa M Severson ◽  
Wilbert Zwart

Male breast cancer is a rare disease, of which little is known. In contrast to female breast cancer, the very vast majority of all cases are positive for estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), implicating the function of this steroid hormone receptor in tumor development and progression. Consequently, adjuvant treatment of male breast cancer revolves around inhibition of ERα. In addition, the androgen receptor (AR) gradually receives more attention as a relevant novel target in breast cancer treatment. Importantly, the rationale of treatment decision making is strongly based on parallels with female breast cancer. Yet, prognostic indicators are not necessarily the same in breast cancer between both genders, complicating translatability of knowledge developed in female breast cancer toward male patients. Even though ERα and AR are expressed both in female and male disease, are the genomic functions of both steroid hormone receptors conserved between genders? Recent studies have reported on mutational and epigenetic similarities and differences between male and female breast cancer, further suggesting that some features are strongly conserved between the two diseases, whereas others are not. This review critically discusses the recent developments in the study of male breast cancer in relation to ERα and AR action and highlights the potential future studies to further elucidate the genomic regulation of this rare disease.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-32
Author(s):  
Geeta Shakya ◽  
S. Malla ◽  
M. Sharma ◽  
R. Panth

Not uploaded.Key words: Estrogen Receptor; Progesterone Receptor; Breast Cancer and ImunohistochemistryDOI: 10.3126/jnhrc.v5i2.2468Journal of Nepal Health Research Council (JNHRC) Vol. 5, No.2, October 2007 26-32


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Bayani ◽  
Coralie Poncet ◽  
Cheryl Crozier ◽  
Anouk Neven ◽  
Tammy Piper ◽  
...  

AbstractMale breast cancer (BCa) is a rare disease accounting for less than 1% of all breast cancers and 1% of all cancers in males. The clinical management is largely extrapolated from female BCa. Several multigene assays are increasingly used to guide clinical treatment decisions in female BCa, however, there are limited data on the utility of these tests in male BCa. Here we present the gene expression results of 381 M0, ER+ve, HER2-ve male BCa patients enrolled in the Part 1 (retrospective analysis) of the International Male Breast Cancer Program. Using a custom NanoString™ panel comprised of the genes from the commercial risk tests Prosigna®, OncotypeDX®, and MammaPrint®, risk scores and intrinsic subtyping data were generated to recapitulate the commercial tests as described by us previously. We also examined the prognostic value of other risk scores such as the Genomic Grade Index (GGI), IHC4-mRNA and our prognostic 95-gene signature. In this sample set of male BCa, we demonstrated prognostic utility on univariate analysis. Across all signatures, patients whose samples were identified as low-risk experienced better outcomes than intermediate-risk, with those classed as high risk experiencing the poorest outcomes. As seen with female BCa, the concordance between tests was poor, with C-index values ranging from 40.3% to 78.2% and Kappa values ranging from 0.17 to 0.58. To our knowledge, this is the largest study of male breast cancers assayed to generate risk scores of the current commercial and academic risk tests demonstrating comparable clinical utility to female BCa.


1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-82
Author(s):  
M Dayem Uddin ◽  
ABM Abdul Hannan

Male breast cancer is rare. It accounts for 0.2% of all cancers, and 1% all breast cancers. Most patients present late for several reasons, including the absence of early signs and symptoms, and reduced awareness of the existence of such pathology among patients and physicians, Reporting these cases from among the Bangladeshi population, we tried to observe any differences in clinical manifestation from those reported in the literature, and aimed to increase the value assigned to male breast as a source of pathology among patients and physicians as well.   doi: 10.3329/taj.v21i1.3226 TAJ 2008; 21(1): 80-82


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