Long-Term Survival Insights in Breast Cancer

During the 2024 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, Prof Patrick Neven, gynaecological oncologist at the University Hospitals Leuven presented 2 posters looking at long-term outcomes for breast cancer patients.

A first of these posters tried to determine factors that predict a relapse in patients with early breast cancer who have been disease-free for at least 10 years. After a median follow-up of 18 year since the initial diagnosis, this analysis (N= 3581) showed that oestrogen receptor positivity, a higher-grade tumour, and a higher T or N stage were predictive for a local or locoregional recurrence.1

In a second poster, Neven and colleagues compared the relative and cause-specific survival of breast cancer patients. This analysis included a total of 2551 patients with unilateral breast cancer treated in the University Hospitals Leuven (2326 with invasive disease). Interestingly the 5-year relative survival for patients in this analysis proved to be 58% lower than the 5-year breast cancer specific survival (4.6% vs. 7.3%). As such, this analysis shows that caution is warranted when comparing 5-year survival rates between different clinical centers.2