The response to endocrine therapy in patients with advanced breast cancer in Great Britain and Japan

Patterns of recurrence in Western and Japanese women with breast cancer

The patterns of relapse in Western women with breast cancer were compared with women from Japan. The results reported are based on a review of the literature. A significant difference between Japanese and Western women was seen with regard to relapse in bone, lung, and liver as assessed clinically. More Western women had bone metastases, but the incidence of pulmonary and liver metastases was higher in Japanese women. A significant difference between the races was also seen with regard to locoregional recurrence of disease, with Japanese women showing a higher incidence of relapse in the supraclavicular lymph nodes compared to Western women. Postmortem studies showed that although the initial metastatic pattern may differ between Japanese and Western women, at time of death the disease is as widely disseminated in the former as it is in the latter.

Patterns of recurrence and relapse--Anglo-Japanese comparative study

A prospective study was undertaken to compare the recurrent sites of breast cancer patients in Japan and the UK. The number of patients collected between April 1979 and August 1980 were 205 in the UK and 199 in Japan, of which those who had recurrence were 89 and 49 respectively. A comparison of the distribution of the first recurrence sites demonstrated that the Japanese patients had significantly higher rates of local recurrence in the supraclavicular fossa and distant metastasis to the lung than UK patients. When comparing the distribution of all recurrent sites seen in the study, Japanese patients showed a significantly higher incidence of metastasis to the supraclavicular fossa and the lung while the UK patients showed a significantly higher incidence of skin metastasis. Bone metastases were observed more often in Japanese patients and liver metastases in UK patients, but neither of the differences were statistically significant.