Survival in breast cancer: a population-based study in Bangalore, India.
Survival from cancer reflects the aggressiveness of the disease, the effectiveness of treatment and host factors such as age. While hospital-based survival rates are typically used to evaluate the care provided in a particular hospital, population-based survival reflects the effectiveness of the overall cancer control strategy in the region. Here, we report the survival experience of 1514 breast cancer patients registered by the Bangalore population-based registry during 1982-1989. There have been very few reports on survival from cancer in India, mainly because of poor patient follow-up and inadequate system of registration of death. This has been largely overcome in this study by means of active follow-up through visits of homes of patients. Scrutiny of medical records and matching with death certificates, was also carried out in a small proportion (12%) of cases. Thus, information on vital status (whether dead or alive) as on January 1, 1993 was available for 1334 (88%) subjects and partial follow up data were available for a further 34 (2%). The observed 5 year survival was 42.3% and the corresponding relative survival was 46.8%. The observed survival was 57.4% for localized disease, 45.8% for direct extension, 37% for those with regional node involvement, 14.2% for distant metastasis and 38.3% for those with unstaged disease. The clinical extent of disease and the educational status were independent predictors of survival.
Coordinating Unit, Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, Bangalore, India.
A
A
Nandakumar
N
N
Anantha
T C
TC
Venugopal
R
R
Sankaranarayanan
K
K
Thimmasetty
M
M
Dhar
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012042:Registries; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis