Survival of breast cancer patients. Our experience.

Life expectancy for patients with breast carcinoma has changed in Europe over the last two decades. In Italy, the overall survival rate is about 77% at 5 years. When considering the situation in Sicily, the EUROCARE 2 study examined survival data from the Ragusa Cancer Registry, showing that the curves are worse than in other regions of Italy. Starting from these considerations we decide to evaluate whether these data from the Ragusa Cancer Registry corresponded to Palermo data. So we analysed data from 575 consecutive patients with breast cancer, treated in our Breast Unit from 1990 to 2003 according to the St. Gallen Recommendations and followed for a median period of 5 years. The prognostic role of age, tumour size, nodal status, TNM, stage, grading and hormonal receptors (OR, PR) were analysed and survival curves at 5 and 10 years were produced using the actuarial survival methods. All causes of death were considered. The median follow-up was 33 months. The Log rank test and univariate cox proportional model were used to demonstrate the association between prognostic factors and outcome. When considering T and N status, the curves showed an inverse correlation between survival and increases in these parameters. Overall survival was 92.9% at 5 years and 81.4% at 10 years for T1, 78.4% at 5 years and 61.4% at 10 years for T2 and 40.8% for T3-T4 at 5 and 10 years. Overall survival for NO was 92.1% and 78.2%, respectively, at 5 and 10 years, but decreased to 72.0% and 59.9% at 5 and 10 years for N1. In N2 patients we found that only about 50% of patients were still alive at 5 and 10 years, while for N3 patients the figures were 57.2% and 40%, respectively.