Objective: To evaluate prognostic factors for breast cancer in Mexican women.
Material and methods: Four hundred and thirty two women with breast cancer, admitted from 1990 to 1999 to the General Hospital of Mexico, were included to evaluate their survival using the Kaplan-Meier technique and Cox proportional hazard method.
Results: Overall 5-year survival was 58.9%. The shortest survival rate corresponds to the clinical stage (IIIB, 47.5%; IIIA, 44.2%; and IV, 15%), the haematological metastasis (21.4%) and surgical edges with positive tumor (12.5%). Lymph node-positive (RR, 1.9; IC95%, 1.3-2.8), clinical stage IV (RR, 14.8; IC95%, 5.5-39.7) and surgical edges with positive tumor (RR, 2.4; IC95%, 1.2-4.8) were the central prognostic factors.
Conclusions: These results give consistency to diagnostic and therapeutic criteria for women with breast cancer who receive medical attention in Mexico, taking into consideration the characteristics of the tumor -such as extension, clinical stage and status of the lymph nodes- before making a decision as to the initial therapy.