Resemblance of the Recurrence Patterns in Primary Systemic, Primary Surgery and Secondary Oncoplastic Surgery

Surgical interventions tend to have an effect on the generation of recurrences in tumor patients due to the anesthesia involved as well as tissue damage and subsequent inflammation. This can also be found in patients with breast cancer.

In this multicenter study, we investigated data of 632 patients with breast cancer and the subsequent diagnosis of a recurrence. The patient data were acquired from 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2019 in eight different centers in Germany. The data sets were separated into those with primary surgery, primary systemic therapy with subsequent surgery, and reconstructive surgery. Three different starting points for observation were defined: the date of diagnosis, the date of first surgery, and the date of reconstructive surgery, if applicable. The observational period was divided into steps of six months and maxima of recurrences were compared. Furthermore, the variance was calculated using the difference of the distribution in percent.

The descriptive analysis showed no resemblance between the groups. The variance of the difference of the recurrence rates analysis using the surgical date as the starting point showed similarities in the age subgroup.

Our clinical analysis shows different metastatic behavior in different analysis and treatment regimes. These findings justify further investigations on a larger database. These results may possibly identify an improved follow-up setting depending on tumor stage, biology, treatment, and patient factors (i.e., age, …).