Between 1 January 1975 and 31 December 1988, 90 patients with the diagnosis of inoperable unilateral breast cancer treated and subsequently followed up at our division. Their age ranged between 24 and 76, a median of 48 years. There were 35'in the premenopausal, 41 in the postmenopausal and 14 in the perimenopausal groups. According to the TNM classification 17 % of them were in Stage II and 83 % in Stage III. All were treated using Cobalt-60 teletherapy unit with a dose of 6071 + 40 cGy to the breast and 5000 cGy to the regional lymphatics. Besides radiotherapy 60 % of both Stage II and Stage III patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and/or hormonotherapy. In the analysis of 10 year actuarial survival rates, the axillary node involvement and tumour size proved to be of prognostic value. 20 % of Stage II and 53 % of Stage III patients developed distant metastases with the majority (66 %) being detected in the first 2 years of follow up.