Long-Term Outcomes of Breast Cancer Patients Who Underwent Selective Neck Dissection for Metachronous Isolated Supraclavicular Nodal Metastasis

Abstract

We retrospectively enrolled 139 patients who developed metachronous isolated supraclavicular lymph node metastasis (miSLNM) from 8129 consecutive patients who underwent primary surgery between 1990 and 2008 at a single medical center. The median age was 47 years. The median follow-up time from date of primary tumor surgery was 73.1 months, and the median time to the date of neck relapse was 43.9 months in this study. Sixty-one (43.9%) patients underwent selective neck dissection (SND). The 5-year distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), post-recurrence survival, and overall survival (OS) rates in the SND group were 31.1%, 40.3%, and 68.9%, respectively, whereas those of the no-SND group were 9.7%, 32.9%, and 57.7%, respectively (p = 0.001). No SND and time interval from primary tumor surgery to neck relapse ≤24 months were the only significant risk factors in the multivariate analysis of DMFS (hazard ratio (HR), 1.77; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.23-2.56; p = 0.002 and HR, 1.76, 95% CI, 1.23-2.52; p = 0.002, respectively) and OS (HR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.22-2.55; p = 0.003 and HR, 3.54, 95% CI, 2.44-5.16; p < 0.0001, respectively). Multimodal therapy, including neck dissection, significantly improved the DMFS and OS of miSLNM. Survival improvement after miSLNM control by intensive surgical treatment suggests that miSLNM is not distant metastasis.

Keywords: breast cancer; selective neck dissection; supraclavicular nodal metastasis; survival.

Figure 1

Kaplan–Meier curve of (A), distant-metastatic free survival (B), post-recurrence survival (C), overall survival for miSLNM patients by neck dissection.

Figure 2

Kaplan–Meier curve of (A), distant-metastatic free survival (B), post-recurrence survival (C), overall survival for miSLNM patients by time interval from primary surgery to neck dissection.