Recently, the team led by Yu Zhigang, the Director of the Breast Surgery of the Second Hospital of Shandong University, has published a research report entitled “Overall Mortality After Diagnosis of Breast Cancer In Men vs Women” in “JAMA Oncology” (“Journal of the American Medical Association”) (SCI, IF: 22.416).
The research report was completed by the Breast Surgery Department of the Second Hospital of Shandong University together with Vanderbilt University in the United States. Wang Fei, a physician in the team led by Professor Zhigang Yu, is the first author with the support by the FUB-CSC Program, and Shu Xiaoou of Vanderbilt University is the corresponding author.
This report compared the overall mortality of male and female patients with breast cancer, and quantitatively assessed the factors associated with gender differences in mortality. It is learned that breast cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world. It’s relatively rare for the male to have a breast cancer, accounting for only 0.6%-1% of all breast cancer cases, and about 0.3% of male cancer cases. However, data show that the incidence of male patients with breast cancer increased from 0.85/100,000 in 1975 to 1.19/100,000 in 2015, with an increase of about 40.0%, which is higher than women (24.7%). Although previous studies have suggested that there is a difference in survival between male and female breast cancer patients, the related potential influencing factors have not been fully researched. However, these potential factors will be an important basis for formulating strategies of cancer treatment and survival care.
By using the data of 1,816,733 breast cancer patients (16,025 male cases and 1,800,708 female cases) in the National Cancer Database (NCDB) of the United States, Wang Fei analyzed and found that the mortality rate and risk of male patients with breast cancer are significantly higher than that of female patients. Among them, differences in clinicopathological characteristics and relative inadequate treatment are the main factors resulting in poor survival of male patients with breast cancer. Therefore, further research should be conducted to determine other factors that help reduce this difference, such as other biological factors, treatment compliance, lifestyle, and individualized prevention and treatment methods should be provided for male patients with breast cancer.
The team led by Yu Zhigang of the Breast Surgery Department of the Second Hospital of Shandong University always adheres to the principle of paying equal attention to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of breast diseases. His team is one of first batch starting the construction of the breast cancer team in China, has been funded by the National Key Research and Development Program, and has been actively cooperating with epidemiology centers both in China and in the world. The Epidemiology Center of Vanderbilt University is one of the most influential epidemiological research centers in the United States, and it is also the initiator of several large cohorts including the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survivor Cohort. At present, the two sides have carried out preliminary cooperation and experience exchange in various fields such as cohort construction and talent exchange.
Research Article Link:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/article-abstract/2751525