In young women, the risk of breast cancer recurring, even 20 years after treatment has ended, is higher than in women who are diagnosed after the age of 40. Therefore, young patients should be monitored over a longer period of time than is currently standard, according to a study funded by the Swiss Cancer Research foundation.
While breast cancer is most commonly diagnosed after the age of 50, the number of young breast cancer patients in Europe has been increasing since the turn of the millennium. "We don't know why this is happening. It's likely that multiple factors—such as obesity, the use of birth control pills, and the increasingly early onset of menstruation—are involved," says Elisabetta Rapiti, Director of the Geneva Cancer Registry. Because women under 45 are too young to participate in mammography screening programs, their cancer is often detected at a later stage. Additionally, breast cancer in younger patients more frequently exhibits aggressive biological characteristics compared to older patients.
Despite these concerning trends, there has so far been no systematic overview of the epidemiological situation of young breast cancer patients, notes Rapiti. For this reason, her team examined the data stored in the Geneva Cancer Registry and analyzed information from a total of 1,586 patients who were 45 years old or younger when they were first diagnosed with breast cancer between 1970 and 2012. In 1,051 (or two-thirds) of the patients, the disease did not return, but 265 patients experienced a local recurrence, and in 403 patients, metastases developed in other parts of the body. A comparison of patients under 40 with women aged 40 to 45 who developed breast cancer shows: "The younger the women, the higher the risk of recurrence," says Rapiti.
Rapiti's team emphasizes that the strength of their study lies in the high accuracy and reliability of the data. "Thanks to a high-quality network operating within a limited geographical area, we are confident that all available information has been captured," the researchers state in the final report of the project funded by the Swiss Cancer Research foundation. Given that breast cancer recurs in some women only after 20 or 25 years, the researchers conclude that follow-up examinations for this group of patients should not be discontinued after ten years but, if possible, continued longer.
KFS-3713-08-2015
