Comparison of Clinicopathological and Prognostic Features of Breast Cancer Patients Younger Than 40 Years and Older Than 65 Years

Abstract Purpose The aim of this study is to compare the clinicopathological and prognostic features of women aged 40 years and younger and 65 years and older with breast cancer. Methods Between dates; 01.01.2011 and 31.12.2021 136 female cases aged 40 years and younger and 223 female cases aged 65 and over were identified among all cases (1395 cases) registered as breast cancer in the file archives of Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Oncology for the study. Chi-square (x2) test was used for categorical variables and independent sample t-test for continuous variables. Log-rank test and Kaplan-Meier plots were used for survival analysis. For the statistical evaluation, p < 0.05 was considered significant. Results Both overall survival (p < 0.01) and breast cancer specific survival (BCSS) (p = 0.01) were significantly worse in the older group. BCSS, were significantly worse in the older group in Luminal B (HER2-) (p = 0.013) and HR- HER2+ (p = 0.015) subtypes detected. In multivariate cox regression analysis, only presence of metastases at diagnosis or follow-up (p < 0.001) and ECOG PS 2–3 status (p = 0.001) were associated with an increased risk of breast cancer specific death. Conclusion In our knowledge there is not a study that directly compare this two groups. In our study, similar to many studies, more aggressive tumor features were found in young patients, but unlike many studies, mortality was found to be significantly higher in older patients. Presence of metastasis and poor ECOG PS were found to be the most influential factors in breast cancer specific death risk.