RESUMO
Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women and also the leading cause of cancer related deaths in women. The patterns of failures in carcinoma breast seem to differ by cell type, pathological stage and by the treatment modality instituted. Breast cancers can recur locally, regionally and distantly. Survival rates decrease progressively as the stage of the disease increases. Aims & Objectives: To evaluate the patterns of failure in patients with Breast Carcinoma after definitive treatment modalities. Methods: We conducted an analytical, nonrandomized, cross-sectional study on the Patterns of Failure in 1238 patients with primary breast cancer who reported to our Regional Cancer Centre from 2002 to 2010. Results: A total of 1238 patients with 1189 females and 49 males were evaluated. Most of the patients were above fifty years of age with breast lump being the most common presentation. Infiltrating ductal carcinoma was the most common histology and stage II being the commonest stage of presentation. Most of the patients were hormone receptor positive and Her 2 neu receptor negative. Overall local failure was 3.9%, regional failure 2.7% and distant failure 22.5%. Overall 5 year disease free survival was 78.4%. Conclusion: The most common form of local failure is chest wall recurrence, regional failure is supraclavicular lymphadenopathy and distant failure is bone metastasis. The 5 year disease free survival is lower for all the stages when compared to world scenario. This may be attributed to more aggressive disease behaviour in our patients.