Real-world outcomes of postmastectomy radiotherapy in breast cancer patients with 1–3 positive lymph nodes: a retrospective study

OBJECTIVE To assess the treatment outcomes and to explore the determinants of clinical outcome in breast cancer patients with 1-3 positive nodes who did or did not receive postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) in a tertiary care referral cancer center in Northern Thailand. METHODS We investigated a retrospective cohort of registered breast cancer patients at the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Thailand from 2001-2007. Analysis was performed using Cox regression models to identify factors affecting the overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) rates. Comparisons were made between two cohorts: women who received adjuvant PMRT (74 patients) and women who did not receive adjuvant PMRT (81 patients). RESULTS A total of 155 patients were included with a median follow-up period of 4.45 years. There was a statistically significant 4-year OS difference between the two groups of patients: 100% for the PMRT group and 93.1% for the non-PMRT group (P = 0.044). The 4-year RFS was 85.9% for patients receiving PMRT and 78.3% for patients who did not receive PMRT (P = 0.291). On multivariate analysis of OS, using hormonal treatment was the only significant independent factor associated with improved OS. On multivariate analysis of RFS, none of the variables were significantly associated with improved RFS. PMRT was notfound to be a prognostic variable related to the outcome of patients using a logistic regression model. CONCLUSION Our retrospective, hospital-based analysis demonstrated that PMRT improved the treatment outcome in terms of OS for women with 1-3 node positive early-stage breast cancer.