If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  Primary Tumour Resection Improves Outcomes in Advanced Breast Cancer: Presented at SABCS By Ed Susman SAN ANTONIO, Tex -- December 14, 2009 -- Researchers suggested here at the 32nd Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) that some women who present with advanced, metastatic breast cancer can benefit by surgical removal of the primary tumour. In a retrospective analysis conducted from records at 43 hospitals in Spain, researchers identified 159 women who underwent surgery and who had a median overall survival of 2.94 years following diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. The median survival for the 446 women who did not receive surgery was 1.83 years (P < .001), said Sara López-Tarruella, MD, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain. “Local surgery of the primary tumour is associated with an increase in overall survival, especially for patients with skin or soft-tissue metastasis,” she said during her poster presentation on December 11. “These analyses suggest that locoregional control of the primary tumour should be considered for the treatment of advanced disease in selected patients,” she said. However, she said there is a need to conduct randomised controlled trials among women who present with metastatic breast cancer at first diagnosis. Why resection of the primary tumour would impact outcome in metastatic disease, she said remains controversial. “The biology behind this hypothesis is not fully understood and also deserves further evaluation in the translational setting.” The Alamo Project is a retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed with breast cancer between 1990 and 1997 at hospitals in the Spanish Breast Cancer Research Group (GEICAM). More than 15,000 breast cancer patients were included in the study, but Dr. López-Tarruella and colleagues reviewed cases only of those women with metastatic breast cancer at first diagnosis -- a total of 605 women. A stratified analysis of metastasis by organ found no differences in outcomes between surgery and non-surgery if the disease spread to visceral organs, the lungs, or to bone. However, in the 114 women who experienced skin or soft-tissue metastases, removal of the primary tumour appeared to make a significant difference in outcome. Dr. López-Tarruella said that the 37 women who underwent primary tumour resection had a median survival of 4.52 years compared with a median survival of 1.77 years for the 77 women who did not have surgery. [Presentation title: Impact on Survival of Primary Tumor Resection in Women With Metastatic Breast Cancer at Initial Diagnosis. The Alamo Project. Abstract 3104]
|
