Clinical experience in breast cancer--20 years after radical mastectomy

From 1958 to 1982, 1,035 radical mastectomies have been performed in our institute in cases of breast cancer. A total of 804 cases have been followed up for 5 years or more after the operation, the follow-up rate being 100%. Routine radical operations were performed in 695 cases, whereas the other 109 cases were treated with simple mastectomy, modified radical mastectomy, and extended radical mastectomy. The 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-year survival rates of these 804 cases were 71.8%, 58.2%, 48.8%, and 41.8%, respectively. According to the tumor-node-metastases (TNM) classification, the 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-year survival rates for stage I were 85.4%, 77.0%, 58.3%, and 75.0%; for stage II, 72.8%, 57.4%, 53.5%, and 58.8%; and for stage III, 55.3%, 44.7%, 36.5%, and 8.0%, respectively.