Abstract 226P
Background
The management of breast cancer in the elderly presents a dilemma to oncologists as several factors such as age, significant comorbidities, limited physical mobility, functional dependence, emotional and cognitive functions, and socioeconomic factors impede treatment in this group. In addition, treatment-related guidelines specific to this age group are lacking. The lack of data on elderly patients makes most oncologists reluctant to treat this group of patients with the standard treatment protocols as advised for the younger patients. This study was done to understand the clinical profile, treatment, toxicities, outcome in terms of disease-free survival (DFS) and predictors of three-year DFS of elderly breast cancer patients treated with curative intent in our department.
Methods
Newly diagnosed patients with breast cancer aged more than 65 years who received treatment with radical intent in the year 2017 was included in our study. Details of baseline patient characteristics, treatment details and follow up were taken from case records. Disease Free Survival (DFS) was calculated from the date of registration to the date of detection of clinical or radiological recurrence. DFS was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analysis was used to find the predictors of disease-free survival.
Results
We treated 110 elderly breast cancer patients with curative intent in our department in 2017. In our patient population 79 were less than or equal to70 years of age and 33 were more than 70 years. Median disease free survival was 46 months(42-48 months).Median DFS was not reached in patients less than 70 years whereas it was 50 months(47-53) among patients more than 70 years of age , p-value-0.009. In univariate analysis age greater than 70 years and LABC were the predictors of DFS with hazard ratio (HR) of 2.8(1.2-6.69), p-value 0.013 and 2.9(1.12-7.6) , p-value 0.027 respectively. In multivariate analysis age greater than 70 years was the only significant predictors of DFS with HR of 2.8(1.2-6.5) p-value 0.015.
Conclusions
Standard curative intent treatment was well tolerable among elderly patents. Age more than 70 years was the single most important predictor of disease-free survival.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.