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. 2025 Apr 15;17(8):1333.
doi: 10.3390/cancers17081333.

Oncologic Outcomes of Young Breast Cancer Patients According to Tumor Biology

Marijana Henzler  1 , Kay C Willborn  2 , Wolfgang Janni  3 , Jens Huober  4 , Stefan Lukac  3 , Burkhard Otremba  5 , Wenjie Shi  6 , Luz Angela Torres-de la Roche  1 , Rudy Leon De Wilde  1
Affiliations

Oncologic Outcomes of Young Breast Cancer Patients According to Tumor Biology

Marijana Henzler et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Background/objectives: Young women frequently present with more aggressive breast cancer tumors. This retrospective study analyzed the oncological outcomes of patients under the age of 40 according to the tumor biology.

Methods: Group comparisons were performed via the log-rank test. Recurrence and survival rates are presented according to the Kaplan-Meier method.

Results: In total, 88 women (mean age 36) were included, but two presented with bilateral cancer, resulting in 90 tumors. Triple-negative carcinoma was most common, with 26.7% (n = 24); 11.1% (n = 10) were luminal A; 23.3% (n = 21) were luminal B HER2-negative; 15.6% (n = 14) were luminal B HER2-positive; and 6.7% (n = 6) were HER2-positive (non-luminal). Moreover, 26.1% (n = 23) of patients experienced recurrence (mean 40 months), with the highest recurrence rate in the HER2-positive (50%) and triple-negative (30.4%) groups. The 3- and 5-year recurrence-free survival rates were 84.9% and 77.3%, and the overall survival rates were 93.1% and 90.3%, respectively. No statistically significant differences in oncological outcomes were observed (p = 0.164).

Conclusions: The results show that young women tend to have triple-negative and fast-growing breast carcinomas, with worse overall survival in the triple-negative group. More research is needed on the pathomechanisms of breast cancer development in young women, especially those leading to disease progression and resistance to therapy.

Keywords: breast cancer; oncological outcomes; tumor biology; young women.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Selection of patients with primary breast cancer before the age of 40.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Recurrence-free survival from the time of diagnosis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Recurrence-free survival from the time of diagnosis according to the tumor biology.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Overall survival of patients with breast cancer before the age of 40.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Overall survival rate of young breast cancer patients according to tumor biology.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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