Predicting the risk of axillary nodal metastases and their use in selecting breast surgery options

Management of local-regional recurrence following immediate breast reconstruction in patients with early breast cancer treated without postmastectomy radiotherapy

BACKGROUND

Young age is an independent risk factor for local-regional recurrence after mastectomy in patients with T1/T2 tumors with zero or one to three positive lymph nodes. The authors evaluated the current incidence and management of local-regional recurrence after immediate breast reconstruction in patients with T1/T2 tumors and zero to three positive lymph nodes who did not receive postmastectomy radiotherapy.

METHODS

Clinical and pathologic factors were identified for 495 patients with T1/T2 tumors and zero to three positive lymph nodes who were treated with mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction between 1997 and 2002 and did not receive primary systemic chemotherapy or postmastectomy radiation therapy.

RESULTS

Autologous tissue-based reconstruction was performed in 70 percent of patients, and 30 percent had tissue expander placement. At a median follow-up of 7.5 years, local-regional recurrence had occurred in 16 patients (3.2 percent). Independent predictors of local-regional recurrence were age 40 years or less, estrogen receptor-negative tumors, and T2 (versus T1) tumors (p < 0.05). Multimodality therapy was utilized for all 16 patients with local-regional recurrence. Nine patients (56.3 percent) who had an isolated local-regional recurrence had a 100 percent local control rate and were treated with curative intent. The 10-year overall survival rate for patients with an isolated local-regional recurrence (87.5 percent) was not significantly different from that for patients without a local-regional recurrence (90.3 percent; p = 0.234).

CONCLUSIONS

Routine use of postmastectomy radiation therapy in this heterogeneous patient population should be discouraged to allow more patients to undergo immediate breast reconstruction and ease the burden on plastic surgeons who have had to confront the problems of reconstruction in the face of perioperative radiation in an ever-increasing number of patients.

Present-day locoregional control in patients with t1 or t2 breast cancer with 0 and 1 to 3 positive lymph nodes after mastectomy without radiotherapy

BACKGROUND

We sought to determine present-day locoregional recurrence (LRR) rates to better understand the role of postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) in women with 0 to 3 positive lymph nodes.

METHODS

Clinical and pathologic factors were identified for 1019 patients with pT1 or pT2 tumors and 0 (n = 753), 1 (n = 176), 2 (n = 69), or 3 (n = 21) positive lymph nodes treated with mastectomy without PMRT during 1997 to 2002. Total LRR rates were calculated by Kaplan-Meier analysis and compared between subgroups by the log rank test.

RESULTS

After a median follow-up of 7.47 years, the overall 10-year LRR rate was 2.7%. The only independent predictor of LRR was younger age (P = 0.004). Patients ≤40 years old had a 10-year LRR rate of 11.3 vs. 1.5% for older patients (P < 0.0001). The 10-year rate of LRR in patients with 1 to 3 positive nodes was 4.3% (94.4% had systemic therapy), which was not significantly different from the 10-year risk of contralateral breast cancer development (6.5%; P > 0.5). Compared with the 10-year LRR rate among patients with node-negative disease (2.1%), patients with 1 positive node had a similar 10-year LRR risk (3.3%; P > 0.5), and patients with 2 positive nodes had a 10-year LRR risk of 7.9% (P = 0.0003). Patients with T2 tumors with 1 to 3 positive nodes had a 10-year LRR rate of 9.7%.

CONCLUSIONS

In patients with T1 and T2 breast cancer with 0 to 3 positive nodes, LRR rates after mastectomy are low, with the exception of patients ≤40 years old. The indications for PMRT in patients treated in the current era should be reexamined.