Twelve Years of Male Breast Cancer Experience at One Center

Background Male breast cancer is a sporadic disease and only 1 in every 100 new breast cancer patients is male. There are few satisfactory clinical studies on male breast cancers in the literature. We aim to share the clinicopathologic and demographic characteristics of male breast cancer patients admitted to our clinic in the past 12 years and our experience in the treatment of these patients. Methods The data of patients who were referred to our clinic with a diagnosis of breast cancer, suspicion of breast cancer, or who presented to our outpatient clinic with symptoms of breast discharge, palpable mass in the breast, and were diagnosed with breast malignancy or suspicion of malignancy between 2010 and 2022 were retrospectively evaluated from the data bank records of our hospital. A total of 28 patients were included in the study. Patients’ clinical and pathologic data, treatment options, approach to the axilla, pathology results, and survival were evaluated. Results There were 28 patients in the research; 22 had mastectomies. No surgical intervention was carried out for the 5 patients who had metastases. One of these patients died during follow-up due to advanced comorbidities and metastatic disease. Another patient declined surgery following neoadjuvant chemotherapy and passed away during follow-up (deceased). The third patient died during neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and 2 patients are still undergoing neoadjuvant treatment. Conclusions Male breast cancers are rare diseases. Radiotherapy (RT) after mastectomy increases survival in male patients as well as in female patients. However, RT in male patients is not standardized today. In our study, 15 patients received adjuvant RT.