Breast Cancer Care in South India: Is Practice Concordant With National Guidelines?

The National Cancer Grid (NCG) of India has recently published clinical practice guidelines that are relevant in the Indian context. We evaluated the extent to which breast cancer care at a teaching hospital in South India was concordant with NCG guidelines.

All patients who had surgery for breast cancer at a single center from January 2014 to December 2015 were included. Demographic, pathologic, and treatment characteristics were extracted from the electronic medical record. Patients were classified as being concordant with six elements selected from the NCG guideline. The indicators related to appropriate use of sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy, lymph node harvest, adjuvant radiotherapy, adjuvant chemotherapy, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) testing, and delivery of adjuvant trastuzumab.

A total of 401 women underwent surgery for breast cancer; mean age (standard deviation) was 57 (12) years. Lymph node involvement was present in 47% (188 of 401) of the cohort; 23% (94 of 401) had T1 disease. Ninety-two percent (368 of 401) underwent radical modified mastectomy. SLN biopsy was performed in 75% (167 of 222) of eligible patients. Eighty percent (208 of 261) of patients with a positive SLN biopsy or no SLN biopsy had a lymph node harvest of more than 10. Adjuvant chemotherapy with an anthracycline and a taxane was delivered to 67% of patients (118 of 177) with node-positive disease. Adjuvant radiotherapy was delivered to 84% (180 of 213) of patients with breast-conserving surgery, T4 tumors, or 3+ positive lymph nodes. Fluorescent in situ hybridization testing was performed in 59% of patients (43 of 73) with 2+ HER2-positive lymph nodes on immunohistochemistry. Among patients with HER2 overexpression, 40% (36 of 91) received adjuvant trastuzumab.

Concordance with NCG guidelines for breast cancer care ranged from 40% to 84%. Guideline concordance was lowest for those elements of care associated with the highest direct costs to patients.