An analysis of possible prognostic features of long term and short term survivors of metastatic breast cancer.

Factors influencing the extremes of survival in disseminated breast cancer were analysed. From a pool of 1066 patients with distant metastatic breast cancer, the 41 patients who had survived 5 yr or more from first distant recurrence were matched with the 41 patients with the shortest survival times. Both groups were compared with the pool and, where relevant, with each other. There were no differences with respect to presentation clinical stage, histological subtype, adjuvant therapy or the likelihood of menopause during the disease-free interval. There were significant differences in age, menopausal status, primary treatment, grade, pathological node involvement, time to recurrence, situation and number of sites of metastatic involvement, and response to treatment. The interpretation of these relationships as causal or casual is uncertain; however, given the magnitude of the survival differences, we expected the associated differences to be much greater than we found.