The survival rate of Iranian breast cancer patients with focus on prognostic factors

Abstract

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in women. Several studies showed that TNM stage, grade cancer, lymph node involvement, and the status of hormone receptors are the most important factor of breast cancer prognosis. Objectives: To evaluate the clinical characteristics, prognostic factors, and survival rate in patients with breast cancer who underwent surgery in Ahvaz, Southwest of Iran. Patients and Methods: This historical cohort study was conducted on 561 patients who underwent surgery for breast cancer between May 1997 and June 2016. Clinical characteristics, pathological profile, stage, and treatments of the patients were recorded. The prognostic factor, two and five-year overall survival (OS) rates, disease-free survival (DFS) were evaluated by the Cox proportional hazards model and the Kaplan-Meier test, respectively. Results: The two and five-year OS rates were 92.1% and 81.7%, respectively. The most important prognostic factors in breast cancer survival were age, the size of the tumor, regional lymph node involvement, metastasis, stage, relapse, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and hormone therapy. There was no significant relationship between tumor type, tumor site, metastasis, surgery kind, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and the status of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and the five-year survival rate. Conclusion: This study showed that the most important factors affecting the high survival rate of patients with breast cancer are hormonal receptors, non-involvement of the lymph nodes, early-stage cancer, no recurrence, and no metastasis.