Imaging and Clinicopathologic Characteristics of Breast Cancers in Younger Group Compared to in Old Group

Although the incidence of breast cancer in Korea remains much lower than that in Western countries, it has been continuously increased. Recently, breast cancer has been reported highest incidence among the women’s cancer in Korea. The breast cancer incidence reported in United States is 6.5% occurs by the age of 40 yr where as 11.3-17.3% of the incidence occurs in women younger than 35 yr of age according to the Korean Breast Cancer Society which is much higher.(1-3) Previous studies have shown mammography (MMG) to be ineffective as a diagnostic modality in young women, Ultrasound (US) would be the method of choice in the evaluation of young aged breast cancer.(4,5) However, there has not been a world consensus of US used as a screening tool for breast cancer. Also many reports suggested that in young age breast cancer is more aggressive and carries a higher mortality in younger women.(6-8) Whether a poorer prognosis is caused by a diagnostic delay or different characteristics of the tumor is still controversial. Most of the studies were limited to the young age cancer without comparison to old age group.(9-13) In this study, we evaluated the difference of imaging features on MMG and US, clinical and pathologic characteristics of young age breast cancer compared to older patients in Korean women.