Assessment of Breast Cancer Mortality Trends Associated With Mammographic Screening and Adjuvant Therapy From 1986 to 2013 in the State of Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Diagnosis of early breast cancer (EBC) in women by mammographic screening and postsurgical adjuvant endocrine therapy and chemotherapy (termed adjuvant therapy) began simultaneously in many countries in the 1990s. Subsequent breast cancer mortality declines were variously attributed to mammographic screening and/or adjuvant therapy. To determine the relative mortality reductions associated with these 2 interventions in women with EBC who had been exposed to both. This secondary analysis of cross-sectional studies assessed groups of women with invasive breast cancer in the State of Victoria, Australia, from January 1, 1982, to December 31, 2013, who were included in the Victorian Cancer Registry (VCR). The population consisted of participants in population-based studies of female breast cancer from 1986 to 2013 using data from 4 VCR population-based surveys of breast cancer treatment from 1986 to 1999; VCR data on breast cancer incidence, mortality, and TNM stage at diagnosis from 1986 to 2013; and Victorian mammographic screening program (BreastScreen Victoria) data from 1992 to 2007. Breast cancer incidence and mortality data were analyzed for all 76 630 women registered with invasive breast cancer with the VCR from January 1, 1982, to December 31, 2013, and breast cancer treatment and screening data were analyzed additionally for the groups of surveyed women as described above. Participation in BreastScreen Victoria and receipt of adjuvant therapy after surgery for EBC. Data were analyzed for associations between crude breast cancer mortality trends and uptake of adjuvant therapy and downstaging by mammographic screening. Of all 76 630 women registered with breast cancer with the VCR from January 1, 1982, to December 31, 2013. Joinpoint analyses of the time trend in crude mortality showed an increase from 31.6 per 100 000 women in 1982 to 34.3 per 100 000 women in 1994, with a single joinpoint at 1994, followed by a significant declining trend to 23.9 per 100 000 women in 2013 (annual percentage change, -1.3%; 95% CI, -1.6% to -0.9%). By 1999, 74% of all Victorian women with EBC (737 of 1001) had commenced adjuvant endocrine therapy, and 72% (187 of 260) of premenopausal and 29% (215 of 741) of postmenopausal women with EBC had commenced adjuvant chemotherapy. Crude incidence of advanced-stage breast cancer almost doubled from 12.2 per 100 000 women in 1986 to 23.9 per 100 000 women in 2013. This study found that mammographic screening did not downstage breast cancer in Victoria from advanced to early, so population mortality benefit is lacking. Adjuvant therapy uptake was associated with all of the decline in Victorian breast cancer mortality since 1994. Given these findings, monitoring the relative contributions of mammographic screening and adjuvant therapy for EBC to breast cancer mortality reductions in populations of women exposed to both should be mandatory.