Background:

Incidence of breast cancer in patients <40 years old accounts for 20% of the total breast cancer patients in Egypt. Several studies considered young age as bad prognostic factor .This study was conducted to evaluate the differences in survival between age groups below and above the age of 40.

Methods:

170 patients <40 years and 500 patients ≥40 years were evaluated retrospectively to assess the differences in disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) between age groups after adjustment of other risk factors like stage, lymph node status, tumor size, and hormonal positivity.

Results:

After median follow up of 49 months, there was no significant difference between the 2 age groups with regards to DFS p= 0.6 and OS P=0.7 and there was no significant difference between the 2 groups when we stratified the patients according to stages, hormonal status and number of metastatic lymph nodes. However, we found significant increase in local recurrence after breast conserving surgery in patients <40 years compared to patients ≥40 years.

Conclusion:

Patients <40 years exhibited more often at advanced stage and large tumors size compared to patients ≥ 40 years; However, there was no significant difference in DFS and OS when we adjusted other risk factors. On the other hand, our analysis revealed that age <40 years can be considered as an adverse prognostic factor for the locoregional failure after breast conserving surgery.