The prognosis of breast carcinoma in women aged less than 40 years.

A retrospective analysis has been carried out on 803 patients with breast carcinoma and aged less than 40 years. All the patients were followed up at the Christie Hospital for a maximum for 15 years. The survival for the whole group was 52% at five years, 40% at 10 years and 33% at 15 years. In this study for worsened with decreasing age. When the axillary nodes were involved, the five-year survival for patients aged 30 years and younger was only 34% compared to 51% in the 31-35 year group and 57% in the 36-39 year group. At 15 years the comparable figures were 18, 28 and 38% (P = 0.0001).