Preoperative Systemic Therapy Versus Upfront Surgery in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer in the Real World

Purpose: To compare survival in different strategies, preoperative systemic treatment versus upfront surgery, in HER2-positive early breast cancer patients in the real world. Methods: According to the actual upfront treatment, eligible patients from 2012 to 2015 were classified as preoperative systemic treatment or upfront surgery group prospectively. The primary endpoint is disease-free survival; the second endpoint is overall survival. All the outcomes were examined in the propensity score matching model and inverse probability of treatment weighting model. Results: Included in the analysis were 1,067 patients (215 in the preoperative systemic treatment group, 852 in the upfront surgery group). In the propensity score matching model (matching at 1:1 ratio), the disease-free survival of the preoperative systemic treatment group was significantly higher than that of the upfront surgery group (hazard ratio, 0.572, 95%CI, 0.371-0.881, P, 0.012). In the inverse probability of treatment weighting model, there was no significant difference in disease-free survival between the two groups (hazard ratio, 0.946, 95%CI, 0.763-1.172, P, 0.609). For overall survival, there was no significant difference between the two groups. Conclusion: The HER2-positive patients who accepted preoperative systemic treatment had better disease-free survival than those who underwent upfront surgery by real-world statistic methods.

Automated summary

In a real-world statistical analysis, HER2-positive breast cancer patients who received preoperative systemic treatment had significantly better disease-free survival compared to those who underwent upfront surgery.