PURPOSE To analyze different events that determine event-free survival (EFS) in a randomized trial on adjuvant radiotherapy in early breast cancer patients with more than 15 years of follow-up evaluation. PATIENTS AND METHODS The trial included 960 patients with a unilateral, operable breast cancer. Surgery consisted of a modified radical mastectomy. The trial compared three arms, as follows: preoperative radiotherapy, postoperative radiotherapy, and no adjuvant treatment. Events were analyzed by a competing-risk approach. A proportional hazards multiple regression model was used to analyze the effects of radiotherapy on the risk of distant metastasis. Similar analyses were performed separately for node-negative [N(-)] and node-positive [N(+)] patients in the two groups that did not include preoperative radiotherapy. RESULTS Radiotherapy produced a fivefold decrease of the risk of local recurrence (P < .0001). In N(+) patients, postoperative radiotherapy decreased the risk of distant dissemination (relative risk, 0.63). When local recurrence was introduced in the model as a time-dependent covariate, this factor was predictive of distant dissemination (P < .0001) and nullified the effect of postoperative radiotherapy. This finding suggests that the decrease of distant metastases was related to the prevention of local recurrence. A similar effect was found in models that used overall survival as an end point. CONCLUSION This study shows that postmastectomy radiotherapy in N(+) breast cancer patients may decrease the distant metastasis rate by preventing local recurrences and thus avoiding secondary dissemination.
Primary and secondary care management of women with early breast cancer from affluent and deprived areas: retrospective review of hospital and general practice records
