Surgical treatment of breast cancer in patients aged 80 years or older – how much is enough?

BMC Cancer

Nikola Besic²  Hana Besic²  Barbara Peric²  Gasper Pilko²  Rok Petric²  Jan Zmuc²  Radan Dzodic¹  Andraz Perhavec² 

[1] Department of Surgical Oncology, Institute of Oncology and Radiology of Serbia, Pasterova 14, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

[2] Department of Surgical Oncology, Institute of Oncology, Zaloska 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

关键词: Prognosis;    Treatment;    Elderly;    Breast cancer;   

Others  :  1121041
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-14-700

 received in 2014-04-28, accepted in 2014-09-17,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

The population of elderly people is increasing and so is the population of breast cancer patients aged ≥80 years. The aim of our retrospective study was to identify independent prognostic factors for the duration of breast cancer-specific survival of surgically treated patients aged ≥80 years. The secondary aim was to determine the appropriate surgical treatment of breast cancer in patients aged ≥80 years.

Methods

We reviewed the medical records of 154 patients aged ≥80 years with early-stage breast cancer (mean age 83 years) who underwent surgery at the tertiary cancer center in the period from 2000 to 2008. Tumor stage was pT1/pT2 and pT3/pT4 in 75% and 25%, respectively. Surgical treatment comprised: quadrantectomy (in 27%), mastectomy (in 73%), axillary dissection (in 57%), and sentinel lymph node biopsy (in 18%), while 25% of patients had no axillary surgery.

Results

During a median follow-up of 5.3 years, 31% of patients died of breast cancer, while 28% of patients died of other causes. Half of our patients with poorly differentiated breast cancer or estrogen receptor-negative tumor died of breast cancer. Multivariate statistical analysis showed that the pathological T-stage, pathological N-stage and estrogen receptors were independent prognostic factors for the duration of breast cancer-specific survival of patients.

Conclusion

Short breast cancer-specific survival indicates that, in patients aged ≥80 years, breast cancer with metastases in axillary lymph nodes can be an aggressive disease.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Besic et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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