Cancer of the male breast in Zaria, Nigeria.

Sixteen Nigerian men presented with advanced breast cancer to Ahmadu Bello University Hospital in Zaria, Nigeria over the 15-year period 1975 to 1989. This comprised 9% of patients with breast cancer seen during this period. They had a median age of 55 years, median symptom duration of 12 months and median tumour size of 8cm; 14 (87.5%) of the patients had Stage IV cancer at presentation. Anaplastic and infiltrating ductal carcinomas accounted for 25% and 56.3% respectively, of the tumour histological type. Mastectomy was the mainstay treatment modality. Only 4 patients came for follow-up, for a median duration of 8.5 months. Overall, this pattern is very similar to the pattern of breast cancer in Nigerian women.