pTis and pT1a Ipsilateral Breast Tumor Recurrence Is Associated with Good Prognosis after Salvage Surgery

Patients with ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence (IBTR) after breast-conserving surgery have a poor prognosis. There is little information regarding the prognostic impact of the tumor size in patients with IBTR.

A total of 143 patients who had histologically confirmed IBTR without distant metastases and who underwent salvage surgery between 1989 and 2013 in our hospital were included. Distant disease-free survival (DDFS) was calculated according to the invasive tumor size of IBTR. The median follow-up period was 4.6 years.

Patients with pT1b or more advanced IBTR have a high (≥20%) 5-year distant recurrence risk. There were significant differences in DDFS between patients with pTis or pT1a and those with pT1b or a more advanced stage (5-year DDFS: 94.4 vs. 70.1%, respectively, p value = 0.006). This significance remained after adjusting for other clinicopathological factors (p value = 0.04).

Patients with pTis or pT1a IBTR have a good prognosis after salvage surgery for IBTR, and the omission of adjuvant chemotherapy could be considered. Further research and validation studies are needed.