Survival of women with breast cancer in France: variation with age, stage and treatment

This study examines survival of women with breast cancer using a sample of 1564 cases occurring in 1990 taken from all cases recorded in seven French cancer registries. Age at diagnosis pathological stage (pTNM) and treatment were the criteria selected for the study of the survival. We studied the 5-year observed survival and the relative survival. Tumors pT1 represented 46.7% cases, pT2: 31.6%, pT3 and pT4: 9.2%, and 52% of the tumors had no nodal involvement or metastasis. For cases without surgical treatment the prognosis was poor (observed survival 18.7%, relative survival 25.9%). For women benefiting from neoadjuvant treatment, observed survival rate was 65% after 5 years and relative survival rate 69.1%. For women who were treated first with surgery, the observed survival was 79.5% and the relative survival 86.7%. The survival rate for women under 40 years was slightly lower than for the 40-54-year-old. Using relative survival the youngest group had the worst prognosis and the oldest group the best. In older women, therapeutic strategy might have been more selective which leads to a better prognosis than in the younger age groups treated in a comparable way.