Survival and prognostic factors in non metastatic breast cancer

Issue: Breast cancer is the most common cancer of women in Tunisia and in the world. It represents a serious public health problem. Several studies have identified its standardized incidence, including two medical doctoral theses supervised by the radiotherapy department of the Salah Azaiz Institute of Tunis. Data about the prognosis and the evolutivity of this disease are not current. The study of survival and prognostic factors is essential to improve the prognosis of this disease. Purpose: The aim of this study was to describe the clinical and therapeutic features of non metastatic breast cancer, to calculate the overall survival at 5 years and 10 years, to investigate the prognostic factors of overall survival and disease-free survival, and to compare our results to those of a similar Tunisian study performed in 1994. Materials and methods: This is a retrospective study of 474 patients with non-metastatic breast cancer diagnosed between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2004, treated and followed at the Salah Azaiz Institute. Clinical, histological, therapeutic data have been collected. The patients have been divided into Groups according to T stage (Group 1: T0, T1, T2 and T3, Group 2: T4a, and T4b T4c, Group 3: T4d tumors) in accordance to the grouping method used in 1994. Our series of patients were also classified into Stages according to the classification of the AJCC 2010. Overall survival factors were studied for groups 1 and 2 and the disease-free survival factors were studied for the group 1, in order to compare our results with those of 1994. Similarly, overall survival factors were studied in the different stages in order to compare our results to the literature data. Univariate statistical analysis has been done by the Kaplan-Meier method and multivariate analysis by Cox regression methodd.