Survival outcomes of breast cancer patients with brain metastases: Single center experience from Northern India.

Abstract

e13003 Background: Brain metastasis (BM) is a poor prognostic factor for survival among breast cancer (BC) patients. Very few studies reported in the literature have challenged this premise, suggesting that time to the occurrence of brain metastasis and the survival times following brain metastasis differ significantly between BC subtypes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinico-pathological characteristics associated with brain metastasis free survival (BMFS), survival after brain metastases (SABM) and overall survival among Indian women with BC and BM. Methods: Among 621 patients treated for metastatic BC from 2015 to 2018 at All India Institute of Medical Sciences-New Delhi, 79 (12.7%) patients were identified to have BM. Of these ten individuals have presented with BM at the time of presentation. Survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to explore clinco-pathological factors that are associated with survival outcomes in these individuals. Results: Median age of the sample is 42 years (range:22-64). Triple negative breast cancers (TNBC) accounted for 25.3% and HER2 positive were 49.4% in our sample. Median time for the occurrence of BM from cancer diagnosis was 20.5 months (95% CI:14.7-26.2) in the overall sample, while among TNBC and HER2 positive tumors was 14.1 and 20.6 months respectively. In Cox multivariable model, T4stage [Hazard Ratio (HR) (95%CI): 2.4(1.1-5.3)], having a metastatic disease other than to brain at the time of presentation [HR(95%CI): 2.8(1.5-5.4)] and TNBC [HR(95%CI): 2.7(1.1-6.7)], was observed to be significantly associated with BMFS. Median SABM was 7.9 months (95% CI 5.2–16.2) and the median overall survival from the cancer diagnosis was 32.4 months (95% CI 23.4–40.8). Adjusted for age, only the presence of multiple brain lesions (>2) was significantly associated with SABM [HR (95%CI): 2.4(1.1-5.2)]. However, TNBC [HR (95%CI): 2.9(1.2-7.4)]and baseline metastatic disease [HR (95%CI): 2.2(1.2-4.2)] were significantly associated with overall survival following cancer diagnosis in these individuals. HER2 positivity was not associated with BMFS or SABM in this cohort. Conclusions: In this single-institutional study, clinical T4 stage, TNBC subtype and baseline metastatic disease have shown to be significantly associated with BMFS and overall survival. These results suggest that women in Indian population with these baseline clinico-pathological characteristics at the diagnosis of breast of cancer should be frequently monitored for BM.