Blood transfusion and survival after surgery for stage I and II breast cancer.

The records of 690 Stage I and II breast cancer patients (31% of them with transfusions), who underwent mastectomy with axillary dissection were examined whether perioperative blood transfusion might be detrimental to survival. The overall 5- and 10-year survival rates for 477 patients who had not received transfusions were 75% and 63% respectively, compared with 66% and 49% for those who had transfusions (p = 0.005). There was no significant difference between the groups in any other of the most important prognostic factors. An analysis of the subpopulation of patients with favorable prognostic factors yielded similar results. A multivariate analysis indicated that blood transfusion was one of the four variables significantly related to survival.