The influence of steroid receptors status on disease outcome in early breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and fluorouracil chemotherapy.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the influence of steroid receptors (SR) status on disease outcome of early breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and 5-fluorouracil (CMF) chemotherapy.


METHODS
Sixty-six node-negative patients with grade 3 invasive breast carcinoma and 95 patients with 1-3 involved axillary lymph nodes regardless of tumor grade received adjuvant CMF chemotherapy. The endpoints of this analysis were disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Statistical analysis included log rank test and Cox regression models.


RESULTS
The median follow-up period was 81 months (range 6-208). Patients with progesterone receptor (PR) - negative tumors had better DFS compared to women with PR-positive tumors (log rank test, p=0.033). Estrogen receptor (ER) - negative and PR-negative patients in the node-negative subgroup had better DFS than ER-positive and PR-positive patients (for ER: log rank test, p=0.009, and for PR: log rank test, p=0.004). However, positive lymph nodes were the only significant predictor of disease progression among patients receiving CMF therapy (Likelihood Ratio test, p <0.001). Women under 40 bearing SR-positive breast cancer had a trend toward worse DFS (log rank test, p=0.054) compared to older SR-positive premenopausal women.


CONCLUSIONS
We can not unequivocally reveal the influence of SR status on disease outcome in early breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant CMF, although SR-positive patients in the node-negative group were shown to have worse DFS in comparison to SR-negative ones. However, nodal status remained the only independent predictor of disease progression in these patients.
Susnjar
S
S
Department of Medical Oncology, Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro.
Kezić
I
I
Nesković-Konstantinović
Z
Z
Gavrilović
D
D
Nikolić-Vukosavljević
D
D