Breast Cancer Treatment Outcomes in Young Women
Posted: Friday, May 24, 2019
According to research from two studies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Breast Cancer Congress 2019 in Berlin (Abstracts 101P_PR and 102P_PR), young women with breast cancer are more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive cancer types than older patients. However, when provided with guideline-recommended treatments, their survival outcomes and recurrence rates appear to be similar to those of the overall population of patients with breast cancer.
Ines F. Eiriz, MD, of the Hospital Prof. Doutor Fernando Fonseca in Portugal, and colleagues performed the first study, including 197 women younger than age 35 who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2008 and 2017. An analysis of tumor subtypes among all patients found 20% had triple-negative disease, 28% had HER2-positive disease, and 67% had luminal B versus 4% luminal A disease. These results indicated a higher percentage of aggressive subtypes in this patient pool.
“Due to more aggressive biology, initial staging, and survival, the group of very young women with breast cancer deserves special treatment approaches,” the investigators concluded.
The second study, performed by Simona Cima, MD, of the IOSI—Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland, and colleagues, sought to determine the rate of breast cancer recurrence in women up to age 50. At a median follow-up of 45.6 months for 237 evaluable patients, 29 women experienced disease relapse, 9 of whom died. Among the 29 patients, 14 developed local recurrence, 6 developed distant metastases, and 9 developed both. The median time to recurrence was 31 months, and overall survival at 5 years was 93.3%.
“Most recurrences in these patients were local rather than metastatic. Our study is ongoing, and the next step is to identify predictors of local recurrence,” explained Dr. Cima in an ESMO press release.
Disclosure: The study authors reported no conflicts of interest.
