A generalizable relationship between mortality and time-to-death among breast cancer patients can be explained by tumour dormancy.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Women with ER-positive breast cancer may recur as late as 20 years post-diagnosis. The reason for this delayed recurrence is unknown. We studied survival patterns, including time-to-death in 123,705 women with stage I to III invasive breast cancer, enrolled in the SEER database. Among these 76.8% were ER-positive and 23.2% were ER-negative.

Methods

We divided the cohort into ten classes with varying risks of death from breast cancer. The 20-year mortality for women in the highest risk decile 10 was 69% versus 5% for women in the lowest decile 1. The difference in the time-to-death by decile could be explained by a variable α which represents the annual rate of reactivation from tumour dormancy.

Results

The duration of tumour dormancy was much longer, on ave

SUBMITTER: Giannakeas V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6745044 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature