The Prognosis of Patients with Pregnancy Associated Breast cancer: Retrospective Cohort Study.

ABSTRACT

Background: Pregnancy associated breast cancer (PABC), diagnosed during pregnancy or one year post-partum, is relatively rare disease and surrounded by controversies about its prognosis and outcome. Methods: This cohort study is a review of retrospectively collected data of patients diagnosed and treated as PABC from 1987 to 2012 at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Pakistan. We identified patients of PABC and compared with non PABC patients matched for age and stage accrued at 12 ratios. The outcomes i.e. Overall survival and Disease Free Survival (DFS) were analyzed with Kaplan Meir Curves and Cox Proportional Hazards regression adjusted for matching. Results: We identified 62 patients of PABC, who had more aggressive disease (higher grade and receptor negativity) with higher number of patients who underwent mastectomy. Median overall survival in PABC group was 2.4 years (range 4 months-8 years) compared to 5.5 years (range 1.7 years-14 years.) in non PABC group (p-value 0.001). Similarly, the cases with PABC showed inferior DFS (median 1.5yrs) as compared to non PABC (median 3.2 yrs) (p-value= 0.01).Conclusion: PABC has aggressive course with a poor survival as compared to non PABC cases.