High breast cancer mortality rates have been reported in the northeastern part of the United States, with recent attention focused on Long Island, New York. In this study, the authors investigate whether the high breast cancer mortality is evenly spread over the Northeast, in the sense that any observed clusters of deaths can be explained by chance alone, or whether there are clusters of statistical significance. Demographic data and age-specific breast cancer mortality rates for women were obtained for all 244 counties in 11 northeastern states and for the District of Columbia for 1988-1992. A recently developed spatial scan statistic is used, which searches for clusters of cases without specifying their size or location ahead of time, and which tests for their statistical significance while adjusting for the multiple testing inherent in such a procedure. The basic analysis is adjusted for age, with further analyses examining how the results are affected by incorporating race, urbanicity, and parity as confounding variables. There is a statistically significant and geographically broad cluster of breast cancer deaths in the New York City-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area (p = 0.0001), which has a 7.4% higher mortality rate than the rest of the Northeast. The cluster remains significant when race, urbanicity, and/or parity are included as confounding variables. Four smaller subclusters within this area are also significant on their own strength: Philadelphia with suburbs (p = 0.0001), Long Island (p = 0.0001), central New Jersey (p = 0.0001), and northeastern New Jersey (p = 0.0001). The elevated breast cancer mortality on Long Island might be viewed less as a unique local phenomenon and more as part of a more general situation involving large parts of the New York City-Philadelphia metropolitan area. The several known and hypothesized risk factors for which we could not adjust and that may explain the detected cluster are most notably age at first birth, age at menarche, age at menopause, breastfeeding, genetic mutations, and environmental factors.

Background The American Cancer Society, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Cancer Institute, and North American Association of Central Cancer Registries provide annual updates on cancer occurrence and trends by cancer type, sex, race, ethnicity, and age in the United States. This year’s report highlights the cancer burden among men and women age 20–49 years. Methods Incidence data for the years 1999 to 2015 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention- and National Cancer Institute–funded population-based cancer registry programs compiled by the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries and death data for the years 1999 to 2016 from the National Vital Statistics System were used. Trends in age-standardized incidence and death rates, estimated by joinpoint, were expressed as average annual percent change. Results Overall cancer incidence rates (per 100 000) for all ages during 2011–2015 were 494.3 among male patients and 420.5 among female patients; during the same time period, incidence rates decreased 2.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] = −2.6% to −1.6%) per year in men and were stable in females. Overall cancer death rates (per 100 000) for all ages during 2012–2016 were 193.1 among male patients and 137.7 among female patients. During 2012–2016, overall cancer death rates for all ages decreased 1.8% (95% CI = −1.8% to −1.8%) per year in male patients and 1.4% (95% CI = −1.4% to −1.4%) per year in females. Important changes in trends were stabilization of thyroid cancer incidence rates in women and rapid declines in death rates for melanoma of the skin (both sexes). Among adults age 20–49 years, overall cancer incidence rates were substantially lower among men (115.3 per 100 000) than among women (203.3 per 100 000); cancers with the highest incidence rates (per 100 000) among men were colon and rectum (13.1), testis (10.7), and melanoma of the skin (9.8), and among women were breast (73.2), thyroid (28.4), and melanoma of the skin (14.1). During 2011 to 2015, the incidence of all invasive cancers combined among adults age 20–49 years decreased −0.7% (95% CI = −1.0% to −0.4%) among men and increased among women (1.3%, 95% CI = 0.7% to 1.9%). The death rate for (per 100 000) adults age 20–49 years for all cancer sites combined during 2012 to 2016 was 22.8 among men and 27.1 among women; during the same time period, death rates decreased 2.3% (95% CI = −2.4% to −2.2%) per year among men and 1.7% (95% CI = −1.8% to −1.6%) per year among women. Conclusions Among people of all ages and ages 20–49 years, favorable as well as unfavorable trends in site-specific cancer incidence were observed, whereas trends in death rates were generally favorable. Characterizing the cancer burden may inform research and cancer-control efforts.

Purpose: Radiotherapy after breast conservation has become the standard of care. Prior meta-analyses of radiotherapy benefits pre-dated availability of gene expression profiling (GEP) to assess recurrence risk and/or did not include all relevant outcomes. This analysis utilized GEP information with individual-level data from seven clinical trials to evaluate the impact of omitting radiotherapy on recurrence and mortality. Patients and Methods: The pooled observational data included women who had undergone breast conservation surgery for stage I, ER+ and/or PR+/HER2- cancers with clinicopathologically estimated 21-Gene Recurrence Scores (RS) of ≤ 18, and did not receive chemotherapy (n= 1,684). The primary endpoint was 10-year invasive or DCIS recurrence free-interval (IRFI-DCIS), including breast cancer death and was estimated using adjusted Cox models. Secondary outcomes were breast-cancer specific and all-cause survival. Covariates included for all models were age, tumor size, grade, hormonal status, type of hormonal therapy, risk score, and trial. Results: Ten-year IRFI-DCIS was high (96.6% with radiotherapy vs. 91.6% without), for an absolute difference of 5%. Omission of radiotherapy (vs. radiotherapy) was associated with an overall adjusted hazard ratio of 2.6 (95% confidence interval 1.5-4.5) for any first event. There was only a significant increase in risk of loco-regional; not, distant recurrence, breast cancer–specific or overall survival. The effect of radiotherapy varied across subgroups, with lower first event rates for those with estimated RS of <11 (vs. 11-18), and women ages 60+ (vs. <60 years). Conclusion: Omission of radiotherapy in hormone-sensitive patients with low recurrence risk may lead to a modest absolute increase in loco-regional recurrence, but does not appear to increase risk of distant recurrence or death. Citation Format: Jayasekera JC, Schechter C, Jagsi R, White J, Chapman J-AW, Whelan T, Sparano JA, Anderson SJ, Fyles A, Sauerbrei W, Zellars RC, Li Y, Song J, Julian T, Berry D, Feuer EJ, Luta G, Mandelblatt JS. Effects of radiotherapy on breast cancer outcomes among stage I, low-Recurrence risk, hormone-Sensitive breast cancer: Pooled analysis of individual data from phase III trials [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2017 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-11-01.