Cancer Control (Apr 2021)

Metaplastic Breast Carcinoma: Experience of a Tertiary Cancer Center in the Middle East

  • Ayah Erjan MD,
  • Hanan Almasri MD,
  • Hikmat Abdel-Razeq MD,
  • Mahmoud Al-Masri MD,
  • Hussam Haddad MD,
  • Anoud Alnsour MD,
  • Fadwa Abdel Rahman MD,
  • Abdulmajeed Dayyat MD

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/10732748211004889
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 28

Abstract

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Background: Metaplastic breast cancer (MetBC) represents a therapeutic challenge. We evaluated the impact of clinicopathological characteristics and treatment modalities on outcomes among MetBC patients treated at our center. Methods: Women with stage I-III MetBC were reviewed from our database from 2005-2018. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate locoregional-failure-free survival (LRFFS), overall-survival (OS) and distant-metastases-free survival (DMFS). We assessed associations with survival outcomes by log-rank tests. Multivariate Cox proportional-hazards models were used to identify independent predictors of LRFFS, OS and DMFS. Results: 81 patients were eligible for the study. Median age at diagnosis was 48 years. 90.1% had G-III tumors, 64.2% were pathologically node negative and lympho-vascular invasion (LVI) was absent in 72.8%. 67.8% were triple negative, and 7.4% were HER2-neu positive. Most (66.7%) patients underwent mastectomy. Free margins were achieved in the entire cohort, however, 17.3% had close margin (5 cm, nodal involvement and LVI correlated with worse OS, ( P = .019, P = .021, P = .028, respectively). There were no survival differences with respect to age, triple negativity, and morphologic subtype. Conclusion: We report the largest single institutional series on MetBC in the Middle East region. MetBC confers worse survival outcomes, and more aggressive local and systemic treatment strategies should be investigated.