Neoadjuvant chemotherapy or surgery: which is the optimal initial option for T3 breast cancer (> 5 cm)——a real world research from Chinese society of clinical oncology breast cancer database
Abstract Background: The objectives were to explore the real world treatment of T3 breast cancer (maximum diameter of tumor bigger than 5 centimeters). Materials and Methods: We selected T3 breast cases diagnosed from 2011 to 2017 in the CSCO BC database. These cases were categorized into two groups: non-NAC group and NAC group. Adjusted hazard ratios for known predictors of event free survival (EFS) using Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards regression. Results: The study included 868 patients: 49.0%(425/868) of patients chose NAC after diagnosis, 51.0%(443/868) chose surgery as their initial therapeutic strategy(non-NAC group). Compared with non-NAC group, patients in NAC group were correlated with clinical positive lymph nodes, hormonal receptor(HR) negative and human epidermal receptor growth factor 2(HER2) positive. For non-NAC group, only 87.1%(386/443) of patients were pathologic T3 after surgery, the overestimation of clinical examination of tumor lesion was 12.9%(57/443). In addition, there was no significance of EFS between the NAC group and non-NAC group(HR=0.82, 95%CI: 0.64-1.05). However, for T3 breast cancer patients with positive lymph nodes, HR negative and HER2 positive tumors, the NAC group had a better survival than the non-NAC group. Cox proportional analysis showed that lymph node negative, HER2 negative status and neoadjuvant chemotherapy were associated with a longer survival time. Conclusion: As the initial option for T3 breast cancer patients with positive lymph nodes, HR negative and HER2 positive tumors, neoadjuvant chemotherapy is the first therapy.