BCT score predicts chemotherapy benefit in Asian patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, lymph node-negative breast cancer

PLoS One. 2018 Nov 21;13(11):e0207155. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207155. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The Breast Cancer Test (BCT) score has been validated for its ability to predict the risk of distant metastasis in hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative early breast cancer. This study aimed to examine the value of the BCT score for predicting the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy for Korean women with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, lymph node-negative breast cancer. The study included 346 patients treated with either hormone therapy alone (n = 203) or hormone therapy plus chemotherapy (n = 143), and compared patient survival between the two treatment groups. The effect of BCT score on patient survival by treatment group was assessed using Cox proportional hazards models. Based on the results, the BCT score was prognostic for distant metastasis-free survival and breast cancer-specific survival in the hormone therapy alone group. There was no significant difference between the treatment groups in terms of 10-year distant metastasis-free survival in the overall patient population. However, when patients were classified as low risk (n = 266) and high risk (n = 80) according to the BCT score, addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to hormone therapy for patients classified as BCT high-risk group led to a significant improvement in 10-year distant metastasis-free survival, from 65.4% to 91.9% (hazard ratio, 0.18; 95% confidence interval, 0.05-0.64; P = 0.003); in contrast, there was no benefit for the BCT low-risk group. The stratification of patients according to the BCT score also identified clinically high-risk patients who may not benefit from chemotherapy. Results were similar for breast cancer-specific survival. In conclusion, the BCT score was not only of prognostic value but was also a predictor of chemotherapy benefit for Korean patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, lymph node-negative breast cancer.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Asian People
  • Breast Neoplasms / drug therapy*
  • Breast Neoplasms / metabolism
  • Breast Neoplasms / pathology
  • Chemotherapy, Adjuvant
  • Disease-Free Survival
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Kaplan-Meier Estimate
  • Lymphatic Metastasis
  • Middle Aged
  • Prognosis
  • Proportional Hazards Models
  • Receptor, ErbB-2 / metabolism
  • Receptors, Estrogen / metabolism
  • Receptors, Progesterone / metabolism
  • Republic of Korea
  • Risk Factors

Substances

  • Receptors, Estrogen
  • Receptors, Progesterone
  • ERBB2 protein, human
  • Receptor, ErbB-2

Grants and funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by The Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (grant number: HI17C1142) [JEL]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. One author (JH) is employed by a commercial company, Gencurix. This commercial affiliation provided support in the form of salaries for author [JH], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of this author is articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.