Distant disease-free survival (DDFS) discrimination capacity of various pathologic complete response (pCR) definitions according to breast cancer subtypes.
162 Background: pCR has been postulated to be correlated with long-term clinical benefits in some subtypes of breast cancer. Here, we analyzed the discriminatory ability and the predictive power of various pCR definitions for distant disease-free survival (DDFS) according to breast cancer subtypes. Methods: We analyzed 326 (114 Luminal A: ER+/PR+/HER2-, 44 Luminal B/HER2-: ER+/PR-/HER2-, 51 Luminal B/HER2+: ER+/PR+ and/or -/HER2+, 51 HER2: ER-/PR-/HER2+, and 66 Triple negative: ER-/PR-/HER2-) non-metastatic breast cancer patients (pts) who had received neoadjuvant chemotherapy at our institution between January 2003 and June 2012. Four pCR definitions were used: ypT0ypN0, ypT0/isypN0, ypT0/isypN0/+, ypT<1micypN0/+. DDFS was estimated by Kaplan-Meier method, and analyzed by log-rank test and Cox proportional hazard model. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves analysis was used for comparing DDFS prediction models with and without various pCR definitions in addition to other covariates (tumor stage, nodal status, BMI, tumor grade, use of trastuzumab) as variables. Results: The pCR rate was comparatively low in Luminal A and high in HER2. 94.1% of HER2 and 74.5% of Luminal B/HER2+ received total 1 year of trastuzumab therapy. In multivariate analysis, no pCR definitions were associated with improved DDFS significantly in Luminal A, Luminal B/HER2-, Luminal B/HER2+ and HER2, whereas each pCR definition was associated with improved DDFS in Triple negative (ypT0ypN0: HR0.12, p=0.043, ypT0/isypN0: HR0.06, p=0.007, ypT0/isypN0/+: HR0.107, p=0.004, ypT<1micypN0/+: HR0.104, p=0.003). In the ROC curves analysis of triple-negative, a DDFS prediction model including pCR defined as ypT0/isypN0 showed the highest accuracy, but low statistical significance (AUC: 0.834 vs.0.749 p=0.076). Conclusions: pCR could discriminate good and poor prognosis groups only in Triple negative and pCR defined as ypT0/isypN0 has the potential to provide better discrimination in this subtype. The predictive power of pCR for long term clinical benefit in other subtypes may not be obvious due to the influence of effective adjuvant therapies.