BILATERAL BREAST CANCER

Incidence and clinical characteristics of women with bilateral breast cancer treated in the period 1996-1997 at the Clinic of Oncology in Ni were analyzed. Out of 741 patients with breast cancer, bilateral disease was observed in 35 (4.7%) cases. Sinchronous bilateral breast cancer type was registered in 15 (42.9%), while metachronous cancer occurred in 20 (58.1%) cases. Clinical characteristics, age distribution, histopathologic status, tumour grade and survival in patients with bilateral cancer were compared with the appropriate findings in 35 randomly chosen patients with unilateral tumour.Average age structure of bilateral breast cancer patients was 51.92 years, while the appropriate value in unilateral cancer group was somewhat higher, 58.71 years of age. Analyses of the menopausal status, stage of initial disease, histopathologic features and histologic grade have not indicated significant differences in frequency regarding unilaterality and bilaterality of breast cancer.Local relapses and distant metastases were not different either. Five-year survival was not significantly different in these two groups too.The analysis of our results demonstrated slightly higher frequency of metachronous bilateral breast cancer compared to bilateral tumour type.Statistically significant difference was observed for the factor of familial patient history in women with bilateral breast cancer.