Tumour location is not an independent prognostic factor for survival following a diagnosis of breast cancer

Previous studies of patients with breast cancer have examined tumour location as a prognostic factor for survival with contradictory results. The Current population-based study with 356 women examines the effect of turnout location and other important prognostic factors on survival. Univariate analyses indicated that central location (P < 0.001), a larger pathological tumour size (P 0.003), number of positive lymph nodes (P, 0.001), younger age at diagnosis (P 0.003), a more advanced TNM stage (P 0.001). a higher grade (P<0.016) and histologic type (P 0.011) were associated with a higher risk of breast cancer death, The 10-year survival of women with central location was 33%, compared to 73% for medial and 71% for lateral (P<0.001). However, the differences among tumour locations were markedly reduced after adjustment separately for early (P=0.39) and advanced (P 0.56) TNM stages, which also confirmed the results of multivariate analysis that the location does not influence survival after adjustment for other important clinicopathological characteristics. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.