Pregnancy and the Prognostic Value of Breast Cancer Recurrence Scores

During the 2024 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, Dr Guilherme Nader-Marta from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston (MA, USA) presented two posters looking into the impact of pregnancy on the distribution and prognostic impact of the Oncotype DX breast recurrence score (RS) in patients with hormone-receptor positive (HR+), HER2- early-stage breast cancer.1,2 These analyses showed that patients with a breast cancer diagnosis during pregnancy or in the postpartum period had a significantly higher RS than nulliparous women. Importantly, the pregnancy of patients did not have an influence on the prognostic value of the RS. Future research will focus on identifying the biological reason for the more aggressive nature of breast cancer diagnosed during or shortly after pregnancy and will assess the impact of the time since the pregnancy on the RS score.