Abstract P2-14-08: Clinicopathological features and prognosis of nipple–areola and skin flap recurrence after nipple-sparing mastectomy for breast cancer over 20 years

Background: Nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM) is an increasingly popular surgical procedure for treatment of breast cancer. However, NSM is controversial because of its association with locoregional recurrence. We started performing NSM in 1978. Methods: We investigated the surgical safety including nipple necrosis, and nipple–areola recurrence (NAR) and skin flap recurrence (SFR) after NSM for 1071 patients with breast cancer, including 31 with stage 0, 414 with stage 1, 479 with stage 2, 141 with stage 3 and 6 with stage 4, from 1985 to 2017. Our NSM method involved creating a thick skin flap to avoid surgical complications. No patients received radiotherapy. In 1034 patients with stage 1–3 breast cancer treated with NSM who developed NAR or SFR, we evaluated cancer stage, nuclear grade, lymph node metastasis, tumor–nipple–areola distance, and histological classification as tubule forming, solid and scirrhous type. In 748 patients with early stage 1 and 2A breast cancer treated with NSM, NAR and SFR were evaluated for estrogen receptor and HER2 expression. We evaluated disease-free interval and frequency of late NAR and SFR. Results: Median follow-up after NSM was 87 (3–397) months. There was only one case of total nipple necrosis among all 1071 patients. There were 96 patients (9.0%) with local recurrence, including 44 (4.0%) with NAR and 52 (4.8%) with SFR. NAR was seen in 1 (3.1%), 14 (3.4%), 17 (5.1%), 5 (3.4%), 7 (5.0%) and 0 patients with stage 0, 1, 2A, 2B, 3 and 4 cancer, respectively. SFR was seen in 0, 15 (3.6%), 8 (2.7%), 7 (4.8%), 22 (15.6%) and 0 patients with stage 0, 1, 2A, 2B, 3 and 4 cancer, respectively. Median disease-free interval of NAR and SFR was 3.4 (0.96–22.3) and 2.5 (0.21–21.2) years, respectively. Twenty-three (53%), 12 (27.9%) and 6 (14%) patients had NAR at more than 3, 5 and 10 years after NSM, respectively. Twenty (38%), 13 (25%) and 6 (11.5%) patients had SFR at more than 3, 5 and 10 years after NSM, respectively. Therefore, late NAR and SFR were observed. Patients with stage 1–3 cancer treated with NSM who had significantly more frequent NAR, were characterized by high nuclear grade and tubule-forming type cancer. Patients with significantly more frequent SFR were characterized by stage 3 cancer, positive lymph node metastasis and age ≤40 years. Patients with early stage breast cancer treated with NSM with significantly more frequent NAR had negative estrogen receptor expression, positive HER2 expression and shorter tumor–nipple–areola distance (≤2 cm). Overall survival was significantly better in patients with NAR (97% at 5 years and 80% at 10 years) than SFR (71% at 5 years and 50% at 10 years). Regarding SFR, overall survival was significantly worse for multiple (≥2) and diffuse (clinical inflammatory syndrome) recurrence than for single-nodule recurrence. There was no significant difference in prognosis between NAR and single-nodule SFR. Conclusions: Our data showed that clinicopathological features and prognosis differed between patients with NAR and SFR. There was no significant difference in prognosis between NAR and single-nodule SFR. Late NAR and SFR were seen, and careful long-term follow-up observation is necessary after NSM. Citation Format: Sakurai T, Suzuma T, Yoshimura G, Sasaki E, Umemura T, Sakurai T. Clinicopathological features and prognosis of nipple–areola and skin flap recurrence after nipple-sparing mastectomy for breast cancer over 20 years [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-14-08.