KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to investigate the survival outcomes of PABC compared to non-pregnant controls, addressing existing controversies in prognosis.
- Researchers noticed that while the outcome of women diagnosed with PABC is comparable to young non-pregnant controls, the more aggressive phenotype of PABC should be considered in clinical management decisions.
Pregnancy-associated (PA) breast cancer (BC) is a rare entity whose prognosis has previously been studied and is subject to controversy.
María Martín Cameán and the team aimed to access the survival rates, recurrence patterns, and overall prognosis among PABC patients, utilizing a retrospective cohort design.
They performed an inclusive analysis comparing the survival of patients diagnosed with pregnancy-associated breast cancer (PABC) between 2009 and 2021 to that of non-pregnant patients with breast cancer during the same period at La Paz University Hospital.
This study focused on patients diagnosed with breast cancer during pregnancy or up to 1 year after childbirth. Cox proportional hazards regression was employed to compare disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) rates between the two groups, with adjustments made for grade and pathologic stage.
About 89 patients were included in the study, 34 were diagnosed with breast cancer during pregnancy, while 55 were not pregnant. Pregnant patients exhibited a higher prevalence of grade 3 tumors (61.3% vs. 37%, P = 0.023) and advanced-stage disease (pathologic stage III-IV: 44.1% vs. 17.6%, P = 0.008) compared to non-pregnant counterparts.
Median follow-up durations were 47 months for the pregnant group and 46 months for the control group. Following adjustments for tumor grade and pathologic stage, OS rates were found to be comparable between the two groups (HR 2.03; 95% CI 0.61 to 6.79; P = 0.25).
The study concluded that the outcome of women diagnosed with PABC is comparable to that of young non-pregnant controls. However, it emphasizes the importance of considering that PABC tends to manifest with a more aggressive phenotype.
The study was sponsored by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and co-founded by the European Union.
Cameán MM, Marin IJ, Mendez JIS, et al. (2024). “Survival in pregnancy-associated breast cancer patients compared to non-pregnant controls.” Reprod Biol Endocrinol. 2024 Mar 26;22(1):34. doi: 10.1186/s12958-024-01206-w. PMID: 38532462; PMCID: PMC10964548.
