Does total breastfeeding time influence the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis in breast cancer patients?

Abstract

e11033 Background: Several studies suggest that total breastfeeding time reduces breast cancer risk although the underlying mechanism is unclear. However the total breast feeding is not well studied as a prognostic factor in patients with cancer. We aimed to investigate the possible prognostic role of total breastfeeding time (TBT) in breast cancer patients both on relation with tumor characteristics and also on prognosis. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 1673 breast cancer patients who followed up between 2004 and 2010 in our clinic. The total breastfeeding time was obtained by summing the breastfeeding time for each child. The total breastfeeding time was categorized as: 1-The total breastfeeding time between 0-12 months; 2-Total breastfeeding time more than 12 months. Results: The median total breastfeeding time of this population was 12 months. 1011(60.4%) of these have total breastfeeding time between 0-12 months and 662 (%39.6) of them have total breastfeeding time more than 12 months. T, N, M stages were similar in both groups. Total breastfeeding time was not correlated with any of clinical parameters including lymphovascular invasion, extracapsulary invasion, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, HER2 2 status, perineural invasion. There was a positive correlation found between total breastfeeding time and BMI (r=1.24; P<0.001).TBT (≥12 months) has poor disease free survival (DSF) time (116 vs. 75 months; p=0.002) and 3-years overall survival rate (98% vs 95.2%; p=0.049). Conclusions: In our study; total breastfeeding time was not found to be correlated with any of the clinico-pathological parameters. However, disease free survival and overall survival were statistically shorter in patients whose total breastfeeding time was more than 12 months.