Carcinoma of the male breast: report of a series of 88 cases.

A series of 88 cases of male breast cancer was compared with 241 cases of female breast cancer randomly selected from Departmental records. Cases of male breast cancer differed significantly from control female cases with regard to stage of the disease, age of onset and liability to the development of a second carcinoma. In 11 of the 88 cases (12.5%) of male breast cancer another primary malignant tumour developed. In seven instances the large bowel or rectum was the site of the other carcinoma. When correction was made for age and for the stage of the disease the prognosis of breast cancer in men and women was found to be similar. Only minor histological differences were found between male and female cases. Two of 54 cases examined for X-chromatin proved to be Barr-positive.