title: Trends in the prognosis of patients with primary metastatic breast cancer diagnosed between 1975 and 2002.
abstract: We performed a population-based study, including 1089 patients with primary metastatic breast cancer, diagnosed in South-East Netherlands between 1975 and 2002, and tried to give an answer to the question if prognosis of this patient group has improved or not. Follow-up was completed until 1 January 2005. The median survival times for patients with primary metastatic disease were 18, 17 and 20.5 months for patients diagnosed in the periods 1975-1984, 1985-1994 and 1995-2002, respectively. A multivariate analysis, including age, tumour size and information on the localization of metastatic disease and the number of metastatic sites, showed that patients diagnosed in the period 1995-2002 had a 18% lower death risk (95% confidence interval 5-30) compared to those diagnosed in the period 1985-1994. These data show that the prognosis of patients with primary metastatic breast cancer remained unchanged between 1975 and 1994 and that some progress has been made after 1994.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Jeroen Bosch Hospital, 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Miranda F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Ernst
authors.forename: Lonneke V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: van de Poll-Franse
authors.forename: Jan A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Roukema
authors.forename: Jan Willem W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Coebergh
authors.forename: Cornelia M J
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: van Gestel
authors.forename: Gerard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vreugdenhil
authors.forename: Marieke J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Louwman
authors.forename: Adri C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Voogd
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends