PLoS ONE (Jan 2021)

Survival outcomes in elderly Taiwanese women according to breast cancer subtype and lymph node status: A single-center retrospective study.

  • Kung-Hung Lin,
  • Huan-Ming Hsu,
  • Kuo-Feng Hsu,
  • Chi-Hong Chu,
  • Zhi-Jie Hong,
  • Chun-Yu Fu,
  • Yu-Ching Chou,
  • Golshan Mehra,
  • Ming-Shen Dai,
  • Jyh-Cherng Yu,
  • Guo-Shiou Liao

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261258
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16, no. 12
p. e0261258

Abstract

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This study aimed to determine the rates of overall survival and recurrence-free survival among elderly Taiwanese women (>65 years old) according to breast cancer subtype and lymph node status. We identified 554 eligible patients who were >65 years old and had been treated based on international recommendations at our center between June 2005 and June 2015. Patients with the luminal A subtype had the highest rates of overall survival (90.6%) and recurrence-free survival (97.0%), while the lowest overall survival rate was observed in those with the triple-negative subtype (81.3%) and the lowest recurrence-free survival rate was observed in those with the luminal B subtype (84.0%). Multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis, using the luminal A subtype as the reference, revealed significant differences in recurrence-free survival among luminal B patients according to lymph node status. Among elderly Taiwanese women with breast cancer, the breast cancer subtype might help predict survival outcomes. The luminal B subtype was associated with poor recurrence-free survival, and lymph node status was useful for predicting recurrence-free survival in this subset of patients.