Breast-conserving therapy in the management of early stage breast cancer: Our experience in 103 cases.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study is to determine whether our results in breastconserving therapy of 103 patients with earlystage breast cancer are comparable to those of other facilities or not.


METHODS
From January 1990 to October 1999, 103 patients with earlystage breast cancer were treated by breastconserving surgery and whole breast irradiation. All patients were of Stages I or II, and the greatest dimensions of primary tumor were less than 3 cm. The median followup time was 47 months from the completion of postoperative radiotherapy. Local, regional and distant failure rates, and survival rate were presumed using the KaplanMeyer method.


RESULTS
One patient suffered from local recurrence 30 months later. She was followed by simple mastectomy and kept from further recurrence. No regional relapse occurred. Distant metastases were seen in three patients:two patients in bones, and one patient in a bone and the liver after 19, 35, and 32 months, respectively. One patient died from disseminated cancer in 41 months. Only one patient died due to intercurrent disease. Both 5year and 10year diseasefree survival rates were 94.2%, and both 5year and 10year causespecific survival rates were 98.3%.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results were comparable to previously reported data. In this stage although the followup time was too short to define the longterm outcome, it suggested that breast conserving therapy was acceptable and effective in the management of earlystage breast cancer.
Miyashita
Tsuguhiro
T
Department of Radiology, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan. miyasita@nms.ac.jp
Tateno
Atsushi
A
Kumazaki
Tatsuo
T
Furukawa
Kiyonori
K
Minobe
Kaori
K
Shimizu
Kazuo
K
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000601:surgery*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015412:Mastectomy, Segmental / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome