�US researchers estimated that the risk of relapse for breast cancer patients who were cancer-free for five years after systemic therapy
(chemotherapy, hormone therapy, or both, as well as operating room) was not negligible although it was probably lower than many people realized.
The study was the ferment of Dr Abenaa Brewster of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and colleagues and is promulgated
in the August 11 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Brewster and colleagues wrote that women wHO receive adjuvant or systemic therapy (that is chemotherapy or endocrine treatment, or both) as well as
surgery throw a higher survival pace free of cancer than women world Health Organization do not have this type of treatment, only few studies have examined this put up
treatment period, the size of the recurrence risk, and the types of tumors that can occur.
When they explored this region, they found that for breast cancer patients wHO were cancer-free five years after the start of systemic therapy, 89 per
cent of them survived another v years, and 80 per cent of them survived another 10 years, which was about 15 old age after receiving their initial
diagnosis and starting treatment.
For the study, Brewster and colleagues examined records of 2,838 breast cancer patients wHO were on the MD Anderson Cancer Center's neoplasm
registry and were treated between 1985 and 2001. They looked at what happened pentad years after the women started treatment so they could work
out the risk of relapse afterwards adjuvant therapy, which might include five-spot years of hormone therapy.
The study mostly predates the introduction around the year 2000 of a newer class of hormone targeting drugs, the aromatase inhibitors, which is now
often used to treat hormone-sensitive tumors instead of the more traditional tamoxifen. The number of women in the study who were treated with the
newer drugs was very small and the relevance of these findings for them is non clear, the researchers told WebMD.
Nevertheless, for the women in the study, the authors plant that:
216 women developed recurrent disease after a median followup of 28 months.
For women with stage I breast cancer, the five year risk of relapse was 7 per cent.
This was 11 per cent for women with stage II cancer, and 13 per cent for women with stage III.
Risk of recurrence was significantly linked to tumor level, whether the cancer was hormone-sensitive, and whether hormone therapy was
administered.
Brewster and colleagues ended that:
"This study demonstrates that patients with early stage breast cancer the Crab who are disease give up at basketball team years afterwards [adjuvant systemic therapy] accept a
substantially increased residual risk of recurrence."
The authors wrote that the increased risk of relapse after five days of therapy for patients with hormone-sensitive cancer "points to an area of unmet
clinical need", because while options to thin out risk exist for postmenopausal women later on five age on estrogen antagonist, there ar none for premenopausal
women and new strategies ar needed to help these patients lose weight their relapse risk.
The authors also told WebMD that the study revealed good news for women world Health Organization have chest cancers that are estrogen-receptor negative (ER
negative), that is their tumors do not trust on oestrogen to grow. Although less common, these cancers ar usually considered more deadly than the
hormone sensitive type.
The study showed that patients with ER negative tumors wHO survived for five years after starting treatment had a better prognosis than patients with
ER positive tumors, as Brewster told WebMD:
"These tumors are certainly more fast-growing early on, but the outlook is good for women with these tumors who make it for five-spot years," adding that, "
we can now tell these women that their risk for developing a return is lour than for women with ER-positive tumors."
"Breast Cancer Patients Still Have Risk of Relapse After Five Years of Systemic Therapy."
Journal of the National Cancer Institute Advance Access published on August 11, 2008.
doi:10.1093/jnci/djn323
Click here for Abstract.
Sources: JNCI, WebMD.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
More info
