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. 2021 Feb 11:13:1325-1332.
doi: 10.2147/CMAR.S293470. eCollection 2021.

Large Tumor Size is an Indicator for the Timely Administration of Adjuvant Radiotherapy in Luminal Breast Cancer with Positive Lymph Node

Kai-Yun You #  1   2   3 , Wei-Liang Zou #  3 , Lin Ding #  3 , Zhuo-Fei Bi  1   2   3 , He-Rui Yao  1   2   4   5
Affiliations

Large Tumor Size is an Indicator for the Timely Administration of Adjuvant Radiotherapy in Luminal Breast Cancer with Positive Lymph Node

Kai-Yun You et al. Cancer Manag Res. .

Abstract

Purpose: The optimum timing of adjuvant radiotherapy for breast cancer patients who had undergone surgery remains unclear. The present study aimed to identify the clinical factors which could assist the selecting of time interval (TI) between surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy in luminal breast cancer with lymph node metastasis.

Patients and methods: This retrospective study included 1054 luminal breast cancer patients with lymph node metastasis, diagnosed between May 2004 and December 2014, and treated with surgery followed by adjuvant therapy. Overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were compared between patients in the short and long TI groups. Multivariate analysis was performed to examine clinical factors associated with DFS. Subgroups analysis was further performed based on the significant predictors of DFS to explore the association of TI and tumor prognosis.

Results: For the whole group of patients, there was no difference in OS and DFS between patients with long and short TI. Multivariate analysis showed that age, N stage and tumor size were significant predictors of DFS. Subgroup analysis demonstrated that neither age nor N stage were informative in TI selection; in contrast, in patients with large tumors, a short TI was associated with better DFS than a long TI. In patients with small tumors, there was no significant association between TI and tumor prognosis. In the multivariable analysis, TI was independent predictor of DFS and local recurrence-free survival in patients with large tumors.

Conclusion: Large tumor size is an indicator for the timely administration of adjuvant radiotherapy in luminal breast cancer with positive lymph node.

Keywords: breast cancer; radiotherapy; surgery; time interval; tumor size.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
OS for the whole group stratified by time interval. No significant difference was found in OS between patients with short and long time intervals (P=0.903).
Figure 2
Figure 2
DFS for the whole group stratified by time interval. No significant difference was found in DFS between patients with short and long time intervals (P=0.163).
Figure 3
Figure 3
DFS for patients with the tumor size of >2.0 cm stratified by time interval. Patients with short time interval had a significantly higher DFS than those with long time interval (P=0.027).
Figure 4
Figure 4
OS for patients with the tumor size of >2.0 cm stratified by time interval. No significant difference was found in OS between patients with short and long time intervals (P=0.915).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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