Breast and cervical cancer survival at Instituto Nacional de Cancerología, Colombia

to provide and compare estimations of two-year overall survival for cervical and female breast cancer in three cohorts (first treated in 2007, 2010, 2012) at the Instituto Nacional de Cancerología of Colombia.

All patients first treated at the Instituto Nacional de Cancerología for breast or cervical cancer in the years 2007, 2010, 2012, without a prior cancer diagnosis, were included for the study. The hospital-based cancer registry was cross linked with governmental databases to obtain follow-up information on all patients. Probability of surviving 24 months since the date of entry at the hospital was estimated using Kaplan-Meier methods, using the log-rank test to evaluate differences between groups.

We analyzed 1,928 breast cancer cases and 1,189 cervical cancer cases, resulting in an overall survival probability at 24 months of 79.6% (95% CI: 77.8-81.4) for BC and of 63.3% (95% CI: 60.6- 66.0) for cervical cancer, there were no differences in survival for year of entry. Advanced clinical stage substantially affected overall survival, being 32.2% (95% CI: 28.4-44.0) for stage IV breast cancer and 22.6% (95% CI: 11.4-33.8) for stage IV cervical cancer.

Breast cancer was the cancer with the best survival rates at Instituto Nacional de Cancerología; cervical cancer was the one with the lowest survival rates. Overall survival did not change over the years for any of the cancers.