Objective: To determine overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and prognostic factors for survival in patients with invasive breast cancer treated with combined-modality therapy at BMA Medical College and Vajira Hospital.
Material and method: The authors retrospectively analyzed the patient-tumor characteristic and treatment outcomes of 615 patients with invasive breast cancer who were treated in our radiation oncology division between 1997 and 2006. The authors used the Kaplan-Meier method to describe OS and DFS. The authors analyzed associations of patients and tumor characteristics with OS using the log-rank test and Cox proportional hazards models.
Results: The median follow-up time of 60 months, there were 46 loco-regional relapses, 108 distant relapses, and 129 deaths. The 5-year OS and DFS were 77.5% and 73.8%, respectively. The median times to local recurrence (LR) and to distant recurrence (DR) were 23 months (range, 10-67 months) and 24 months (range, 5-91 months). Characteristic statistically significant associated with decreased OS included lymphocascular invasion (LVI), estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) status, tumor stage, nodal stage, lymph node involvement > or =20%, and stage of disease.
Conclusion: Overall, the prognosis of patients with breast cancer was good However the subgroup of patients who presented with LVI, ER, and PR negative, T3-4 stage, N3-nodal stage, lymph node involvement > OR =20%, and higher stage of disease had a poor long-term outcome.