Oncologic safety of skin-sparing mastectomy followed by immediate reconstruction in young patients with breast cancer.

Backgrounds: This study aimed to compare the oncologic outcomes of nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM)/skin-sparing mastectomy (SSM) followed by immediate reconstruction with those of conventional mastectomy (CM) in young patients aged under 35 years old with breast cancer.

Methods: We analyzed retrospectively 2889 patients who underwent mastectomy for breast cancer at Asan Medical Center from January 2003 to December 2008. We compared NSM/SSM followed by immediate reconstruction with CM in patients under 35 years old by analyzing clinicopathologic features, breast cancer specific survival rate (BCSS), distant metastasis free survival rate (DMFS), and local recurrence rate (LRR).

Results: Out of a total of 2889 patients, we performed NSM/SSM in 118 patients and CM in 141 patients aged less than 35 years old. DMFS were 85.3% and 73.4% in NSM/SSM and CM, respectively (p = 0.001). BCSS were 90.7% and 73.0% in NSM/SSM and CM, respectively (p = 0.001). After adjusting for stage, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups with respect to DMFS and BCSS. The type of surgery was not a prognostic factor in multivariate analysis for DMFS and BCSS (CM vs. NSM/SSM: DMFS HR = 0.67, p = 0.215; BCSS: HR = 0.66, p = 0.265).

Conclusions: Compared to CM, NSM/SSM followed by immediate breast reconstruction is oncologically safe and could be a viable surgical treatment in young patients under 35 years old with breast cancer.