Aggressive therapy for locoregional recurrence after mastectomy in stage II and III breast cancer patients

Background: To determine if aggressive treatment of locoregional recurrence affects survival, we retrospectively analyzed the clinical outcome of 69 breast cancer patients who developed locoregional disease as their first episode of recurrence following mastectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: Patients were identified from among 1,707 stage II and III breast cancer patients who enrolled in five different doxorubicin-based adjuvant chemotherapy protocols at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1975 to 1986. Sixty-nine evaluable patients who had a locoregional recurrence as the first site of relapse after mastectomy formed the study group. Multifactorial analysis of clinical and histopathological characteristics of both the primary tumor and the subsequent recurrence was performed using a logistic regression method. Survival analysis was performed using an actuarial life-table method calculated from the date of registration into the adjuvant therapy protocols. Results: Median follow-up was 6.6 years. Two factors significantly affected survival: recurrence of disease during or after adjuvant treatment of the primary and whether the patient was rendered disease free after recurrence. Conclusions: Stage II and III breast cancer patients who have locoregional recurrence after adjuvant chemotherapy and can be rendered disease free may have a better survival rate. Aggressive treatment of locoregional recurrence including complete surgical excision should be considered in this subgroup of patients.