Male breast cancer (MBC) is a rare disease and accounts for <1 % of all breast cancers.

We retrospectively analyzed clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis of MBC patients who were diagnosed in our hospital between March 2002 and March 2012.

The median age of diagnosis of MBC was 62 years, which was 9 years older than female breast cancer (FBC) patients. The highest proportion of MBC patients was in the 50–59-year age group. The percentage of invasive ductal carcinoma in MBC was much higher than in FBC (P = 0.000). The positive rate of estrogen receptors in MBC patients (87.9 %) was significantly higher than in FBC patients (P = 0.048), whereas HER-2 was positive in 17.2 % of MBC patients, which was significantly lower than in FBC patients (P = 0.001). There was a consistent significant difference in luminal subtypes of FBC and MBC patients (P = 0.000). The overall survival rates of MBC were significantly higher than FBC (P = 0.004). HER-2-positive patients had a statistically worse prognosis than HER-2-negative patients (P = 0.040). Lymph node metastasis and larger tumor size were also associated with poorer prognosis (P = 0.056 and P = 0.088). The level of hormones was examined in 7 patients, and abnormal hormone levels were detected in 4.

The FBC patients were significantly different from the MBC in clinicopathologic and prognostic characteristics. HER-2 positivity was an important factor for prognosis.