Lumpectomy safe for younger breast cancer patients

By Will Boggs, MD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Breast cancer tends to be more aggressive when it occurs in younger women, and doctors often advise radical surgery. Now, however, a study shows that breast-conserving treatment, commonly known as lumpectomy, is safe for women younger than 40.

Acceptable outcomes, "almost comparable to the rates observed among patients older than 40 years, can be obtained if high-quality surgery and radiotherapy are combined with chemotherapy," Dr. Adri C. Voogd from Maastricht University in the Netherlands told Reuters Health.

Voogd and colleagues evaluated the outcomes of 758 women 40 years of age or younger who underwent this course of treatment between 1988 and 2002.

Ninety-five women developed a local recurrence of breast cancer during follow-up, the researchers report in the medical journal Cancer, and an additional 17 women had recurrences diagnosed after the cancer was found to have spread to other sites in the body.

"Of the local recurrences that were identified in our study, the large majority occurred at or near the site of the primary tumor, and only 7% developed elsewhere in the breast," the researchers explain. "This suggests that, at least in young women, most local recurrences are not new primary tumors, but are more likely to be true recurrences, originating from residual tumor tissue."

The team calculates that local recurrence rates were 9% at 5 years and 18% after 10 years.

"With our findings, we hope to have taken away some of the fears and make breast conservation a more acceptable treatment option for young women with breast cancer," Voogd said.

SOURCE: Cancer, May 15, 2007.