Clinical characteristics of Korean breast cancer patients in 1998. The Korean Breast Cancer Society.

The Korean Breast Cancer Society collected and formulated data for breast cancer in Korean through the nation-wide survey in 1998. The purposes of the present study were to determine the characteristics of breast cancer patients and compare these data with those from other countries. The data were collected from 36 university hospitals and 41 training hospitals. The total number of patients was 4,695. The estimated incidence of breast cancer in 1998 was 20.3 patients per 100,000 women. The median age was 47.0 years. The operation method was mastectomy (74.3%), breast conserving surgery (23.8%) and others (1.9%). The most prevalent stage was II (53.3%) followed by I (24.9%), III (13.7%), 0 (6.4%) and IV (1.7%). Other clinical and pathological findings were also evaluated. Several characteristics of breast cancer among Koreans tend to follow the patterns of western countries, and we need to understand the characteristics of Korean breast cancer through continuous investigations as the present study attempts.