Breast sarcoma surgical management: a five-year multicentric study

Abstract

Background. Breast sarcomas are a heterogeneous group of breast neoplasms with a low incidence and a reserved prognosis. No treatment protocol has been yet established, a guideline similar to soft tissue sarcomas is used. Materials and Methods. Our study analyzed all the patients admitted with the diagnosis of malignant breast disease in two specialized centers on a five-year time frame. We compared long term results for the patients who underwent conservative treatment and mastectomy. Results. A total of 76 cases received surgical treatment with curative intent, 24 conservative procedures and 52 mastectomies. Incidence of local recurrence does not appear to be closely related to the type of surgical procedure. There were a number of five local recurrences for patients who received conservative treatment and 7 local recurrences where we used mastectomy. Kaplan-Meier analysis conducted shows no differences statistically significant (sig = 0.459) between the results of conservative treatment and mastectomy. Basically conservative surgery seems to get similar results, provided that R0 resection objective can be met. Conclusions. Treatment options are more limited for breast sarcomas than carcinomas, the role of surgery being more important to therapeutic success. The biological characteristic of the tumor including histological type and sub-type, play an important role in determining the results and the treatment should be tailored and adapted for each case.

Keywords

• breast sarcoma
• non-epithelial cancer
• surgical management