The correlation between clinicopathologic features in patients with early stage breast cancer

Purpose : It was aimed to evaluate retrospectively demographical data, clinical properties, prognostic and predictive factors, histopathological characteristics, reactions to the treatment, the rates of disease free survival and overall survival of patients with early breast cancer followed at Dokuz Eylül University, School of Medicine, Department of İnternal Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology. Materials and Method : Patients diagnosed with early breast cancer at the Medical Oncology Clinic between 2005-2010 were included into the study. The features of diagnoses, treatments and follow-up periods of patients were obtained by scanning patients? files and automation system used at the hospital. Results : The patients involved in the study were composed of 258 females and 2 males. The average age was 52,05 at the diagnoses of patients. 89 patients were determined to be in their premenopausal period and 171 were identified in their postmenopausal term at the time of their diagnoses. More complications were observed in the patients in their postmenopausal term (p:0,072). When lipid parameters of patients were examined, more complications were seen in 40 patients whose IdI levels were over 160 mg/dl (p:0.161). When stages of patients were assessed, it was observed that 61 patients were in their first stage, 153 were in stage 2, and 46 were in stage 3. When tumoral lesion was examined, 111 (42,7 %) were in the left upper outer quadrant, 93 (35,8 %) were in the right upper outer quadrant and an important part of it (78,5 %) was in upper outer quadrant. As the size of a tumour increased, the number of developed events was also up (p: 0,086). As long as the lymph node involvement rose, more incidents were observed (p: 0,09). Invasive ductal carcinoma was seen in 142 patients (54,6 %), invasive lobular carcinoma in 39 (15 %), mixed type (idk +ilk) in 51 (19,6 %), and other pathological types were among the illnesses about which patients complained. More events were noticed as the tumour grades went up (p:0,021). When hormone receptors were examined, more incidents were recognized in patients whose hormone receptors were negative (p: 0,29). More complications were seen in patients with tumours displaying vascular invasion (p:0,029). While 252 patients were given adjuvant chemotherapy, 201 (79,8 %) of them were applied anthracycline-based adjuvant chemotherapy, 51 were administered anthracycline and taxane-based adjuvant chemotherapy. 228 patients (87,7 %) were given radiotherapy. When adjuvant chemotherapy toxicity was examined, more events were seen in patients who developed neutropenia (p:0,034). While 5 patients (1,92 %) lost their lives during follow-up period, distant organ metastasis was observed in 6 patients (2,3 %). The average disease free survival period was 83,2 months, on the other hand, the rate of disease free survival was 97,7 %. The overall survival period was 83,57 months whereas overall survival rate was 98,1 %. Commentary : The results obtained from my study was observed to be similar with other studies reported in the literature. Although disease free survival periods and overall survival periods got longer, they are not at a satisfying level. Therefore, new studies and treatment regimes were required. Key words : Breast cancer, adjuvant chemotherapy, survival, prognostic factors.