Tumour characteristics and survivorship in a cohort of breast cancer: the MCC-Spain study

Abstract

Purpose The objective of this study is to analyse the relative survival with breast cancer in women diagnosed after new treatments were generalised and to ascertain the current effect that tumour characteristics such as grade, stage or subtype have on survival as well as the new AJCC-pathological prognostic score.

Methods The breast cancer MCC-Spain follow-up study is a prospective cohort study of 1685 incident breast cancer cases. Women between 20 and 85 years old were recruited between the years 2008 and 2013 in 18 hospitals located in 10 Spanish provinces and they have been followed until 2017/2018. Relative survival was estimated after 3, 5 and 8 years of follow-up using Ederer II method. In addition, Weibull regression adjusted by age, hospital, grade and stage was used to investigate prognosis factors.

Results Among components of TNM staging system, tumour size greater than 50 mm (i.e. T3 or T4) more than doubled the risk of dying, while N3 nodal involvement and presence of metastasis had a huge effect on mortality. The AJCC pathological prognostic score strongly correlated with survival; thus, hazard ratios increased as the score rose, being 2.31, 4.00, 4.94, 7.92, 2.26, 14.9 and 58.9 for scores IB, IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB, IIIC and IV, respectively.

Conclusion Both TNM staging and histological/molecular biomarkers are associated with overall survival in Spanish women with breast cancer; when both are combined in the AJCC pathological prognosis score, the prognostic value improved with risk indices that increased rapidly as the pathological prognosis score increased

Biological samples were stored at the biobanks supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III- FEDER: Parc de Salut MAR Biobank (MARBiobanc) (RD09/0076/00036), ‘Biobanco La Fe’ (RD 09 0076/00021) and FISABIO Biobank (RD09 0076/00058), as well as at the Public Health Laboratory of Gipuzkoa, the Basque Biobank, the ICOBIOBANC (sponsored by the Catalan Institute of Oncology), the IUOPA Biobank of the University of Oviedo and the ISCIII Biobank. SNP genotyping services were provided by the Spanish ‘Centro Nacional de Genotipado’ (CEGEN-ISCIII). We thank all the subjects who participated in the study and all MCC-Spain collaborators. This work was supported by the ‘Acción Transversal del Cancer’, approved by the Spanish Ministry Council on the 11th October 2007, by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, co-founded by FEDER funds – ‘a way to build Europe’ (grants PI08/1770, PI08/0533, PI08/1359, PI09/00773, PI09/01286, PI09/01903, PI09/02078, PI09/01662, PI11/01403, PI11/01889, PI11/00226, PI11/01810, PI11/02213, PI12/00488, PI12/00265, PI12/01270, PI12/00715, PI12/00150, PI14/01219, PI14/00613 and PI15/00069). Support was also provided by the Fundación Marqués de Valdecilla (grant API 10/09); the Junta de Castilla y León (grant LE22A10-2); the Consejería de Salud of the Junta de Andalucía (2009-S0143); the Conselleria de Sanitat of the Generalitat Valenciana (grant AP 061/10); the Recercaixa (grant 2010ACUP 00310); the Regional Government of the Basque Country; the Consejería de Sanidad de la Región de Murcia; European Commission grants FOOD-CT-2006–036224-HIWATE; the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) Scientifc Foundation; the Catalan Government DURSI (grant 2014SGR647); the Fundación Caja de Ahorros de Asturias; the University of Oviedo; Societat Catalana de Digestologia; and COST action BM1206 Eucolongene