Recurrence patterns in a prospective study of patients with stage II breast cancer treated with...

Local-regional versus distant recurrence patterns were investigated for 311 patients with stage II node-positive breast cancer who were part of an endocrine-chemotherapy adjuvant breast cancer trial. After mastectomy patients were randomized to receive either cytoxan, methotrexate, and 5-fluorouracil (CMF) (1 year) or CMF with tamoxifen (1 year) with or without bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). With a median follow-up of 92.1 months, 55.3% of the patients had recurrences. The first site of recurrence was local-regional for 31.4% of patients and distant for 68.6%. This pattern of first recurrence was not associated with treatment groups, menopausal status, race, estrogen receptor value, number of positive lymph nodes, or tumour diameter. Although patients with a first local-regional recurrence had a better overall prognosis compared with those with a first distant recurrence, 52.2% of those patients with an initial local-regional recurrence developed a distant recurrence within 12 months. Among patients who had a recurrence, 48.3% had a local-regional recurrence at some time during their follow-up. Conclusions from this study are (1) patterns of recurrence were not affected by the addition of antiestrogen therapy to chemotherapy; (2) for the variables tested, including number of positive nodes and tumor diameter, no association with recurrence patterns was found; and (3) most patients (52.2%) with a first local-regional recurrence will develop a distant recurrence within 1 year.