title: The influence of steroid receptors status on disease outcome in early breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and fluorouracil chemotherapy.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Susnjar
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kezić
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Nesković-Konstantinović
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gavrilović
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Nikolić-Vukosavljević