Micrometastatic node-positive breast cancer: an analysis of survival outcomes and prognostic impact of the number of positive nodes and the ratio of positive to excised nodes in comparison to node-negative and macrometastatic node-positive breast cancer
Date
2009-04-30T17:32:11Z
Authors
Li, Karen Hui
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Abstract
In this study, we examined survival for patients with micrometastases greater than 0.2mm but less than 2mm (pN1a) in comparison to node-negative (pN0) and macrometastatic node-positive (pN1b) patients. Data for patients diagnosed from 1988 to 1998 with TNM pathological T1-2 stage, pN0, and pN1a-b breast cancer with no distant metastasis was provided by Dr. P. Truong from BC Cancer Agency. Results obtained from the Kaplan-Meier estimators and the multivariable Cox Proportional Hazards Model analyses suggested that micrometastatic node-positive patients had worse survival than the node-negative patients, but better survival in comparison to the macrometastatic node-positive patients. Increasing number of positive nodes and larger values of the ratio of positive to excised nodes were significantly associated with worse survival.
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Keywords
Breast cancer, micrometastasis, Cox PH model, positive nodes, lymph node ratio