[The indications for postoperative adjuvant therapy in node-negative breast cancer patients]

A clinicopathological study on prognosis has been carried out in 233 breast cancer patients with more than twenty inspected nodes and without lymph node metastasis. Multivariate analysis of clinicopathological findings in node-negative breast cancers showed that the best combination of clinical features predicting prognosis were age, menstruation status, tumor location and tumor diameter; and from 11 pathological features, three factors (histological type, histological grade and the grade of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes) were selected under condition of p<0.05. With solid-tubular carcinoma, histological grade III and negative tumor infiltrating lymphocytes as the 3 poor prognostic factors, node-negative breast cancers were classified. The recurrence rates of subgroups with the number of 3, 2, 1 and 0 were 28%, 16%, 7% and 0%, respectively. We conclude that the grade of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes is especially significant as the prognostic factor in node-negative breast cancers, and that postoperative adjuvant chemoendocrine therapy must be performed for patients with node-negative breast cancer with more than two poor prognostic pathological factors.