BACKGROUND: In order to investigate the impact of local recurrence on breast cancer patient prognosis, we developed this study. METHOD: A retrospective cohort study including 192 patients with early stage breast cancer subjected to breast conserving surgery (BCT) was performed to evaluate the local recurrence pattern and its role on disease progression. Using clinical and pathological criteria (time for recurrence, site of local recurrence and histological type) we classified patients as true local recurrence (TR group), new primary tumor (NP group), and patients free of local recurrence (FLR group). We compared the clinical course among these groups. RESULTS: Patients classified as NP are associated with young age and pre-menopausal status. The presence of TR is the most important predictive factor of prognosis and 40% of patients presented synchronic metastatic disease. The metastatic disease occurred in 28.5% and 4.7% of patients in the NP and FLR groups, respectively (p< 0.0001). Five-year overall survival rate was 75% in the TR group, 100% in the NP group and 98.2% in the FLR group (p< 0.0001). The Histological type and grade, margins status, lymph node metastasis and hormonal receptors were not predictive factors of local recurrence. Patients who were not submitted to hormonal therapy and young age are the most important predictive factors of local recurrence. CONCLUSION: True local recurrence had an influence on overall survival in patients with early breast cancer and the main risk factor for local recurrence was young age. The high-risk incidence for recurrence after BCT in such patients is a limiting factor of therapy.
Breast neoplasms; Surgery; Neoplasm Recurrence, local; Prognosis
