Abstract
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive malignancy with a poor prognosis. Data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database (2010–2012) were used to identify 10,771 patients with TNBC, and we assessed the effects of lymph node (LN) status on breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) and overall survival (OS). In our study, a Kaplan-Meier plot showed that LN-negative patients (N0) had better survival outcomes than LN-positive patients and that patients with ≥10 positive LNs (N3) exhibited the worst survival outcomes regardless of tumor size. A pairwise comparison showed no difference in survival outcomes among each group stratified by tumor size. Further, for LN-positive patients with a tumor size ≤2 cm (T1) or >5 cm (T3), there were similar outcomes between patients with one to three LNs (N1) and those with four to nine LNs (N2), whereas N1 patients experienced significantly better survival outcomes than N3 patients (P<0.001). Therefore, ten metastatic lymph nodes was the cut-off value for poor prognosis. Nevertheless, for patients with a tumor size of 2-5 cm (T2), the extent of LN involvement contributed prognostic value to OS but not BCSS. In summary, we found that nodal status and tumor size exhibited distinct interaction patterns for predicting the outcomes of TNBC. These results provide deeper insight into the prognostic value of nodal status in TNBC.
Highlights
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), defined as a tumor that lacks expression of the oestrogen receptor (ER), the progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), accounts for 15–20% of all breast cancer cases [1]
Hernandez-Aya et al [18] elucidated that TNBC patients with positive lymph node status experienced worse overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) but that the prognosis of these patients may not be affected by the number of positive lymph nodes
Our findings indicated that the lymph node-positive group had a larger tumor size than the lymph node-negative group
Summary
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), defined as a tumor that lacks expression of the oestrogen receptor (ER), the progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), accounts for 15–20% of all breast cancer cases [1]. Several factors responsible for the poor clinical outcomes observed in TNBC, including age, race, grade, tumor size, lymph node status, and distant metastasis, have been studied. Among these factors, tumor size, lymph node status, and distant metastasis serve as important prognostic determinants and constitute the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system [9]. Based on small numbers of patients and different populations, investigators have arrived at discordant conclusions From these relevant studies, we consider that the prognostic value of nodal status continues to remain uncertain and controversial. It is necessary to further elucidate the relationship between nodal status and the prognosis of TNBC patients in a larger cohort
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