The prognostic significance of pathologic characteristics of breast cancer patients in Taiwan

To investigate the prognostic significance of pathologic characteristics of breast cancer patients, we retrospectively studied 514 patients with operable cancer from 1978 through 1987. The mean age of the patients was 50.2 ± 12.4 years. Tumor sizes ranged from 0.7 to 13.0 cm, with a mean size of 4.26 ± 2.4 cm. Axillary node metastases were found in 56.4% of the patients. Univariate analysis on the survival rate revealed that the number of positive nodes, tumor size, lymphatic permeation, tumor necrosis, histologic type, histologic grade, and age were significant prognostic factors. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the number of positive nodes (p < 0.00005), histologic grade (p = 0.0002), and tumor size (p = 0.0108) were independent prognostic factors. Our study confirms the importance of pathologic characteristics in predicting the prognosis of breast cancer patients.