Does primary tumor resection improve outcomes for patients with incurable advanced breast cancer?
The Breast, 07/27/2011
Shibasaki S et al. – Primary tumor resection failed to prolong overall survival times in patients with incurable advanced breast cancer that was greater than 5cm. However, surgery did improve the quality of life in patients who were expected to have a relatively long prognosis
Methods- 92 women, who had tumors of greater than 5cm and distant metastasis at diagnosis, were included in this study
- Effect of surgical treatment on survival was evaluated
- Patient demographics and tumor characteristics were also investigated
- 36 patients had surgery for resection of primary tumors
- No substantive differences between individuals, or between tumor characteristics, for patients who underwent surgery versus patients who did not
- Median survival time for surgically treated patients was 25.0 months versus 24.8 months for patients who did not undergo surgical resection (P=0.352)
- Only three patients relapsed within three months of surgery
- For the remaining majority of patients, primary tumor resection gave some relief from the often severe symptoms that come from harboring a large tumor for an extended time
- In univariate and subsequent multivariate analyses of predictive indicators, a diagnosis of triple-negative breast cancer and/or metastasis to more than 3 sites was significantly associated with severe prognosis
