Hereditary breast cancer growth rates and its impact on screening policy.

Imaging is often performed yearly for the surveillance of BRCA1/2 mutation carriers and women at high familial breast cancer risk. Growth of cancers in carriers may be faster as these tumours are predominantly high grade. Quantitative data on tumour growth rates in these 2 groups are lacking. Here, we have examined 80 high-risk women under surveillance for tumour size at diagnosis and preceding examinations at mammography and/or MRI. Tumour volume doubling time (DT) was assessed in 30 cancers in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers and 25 non-carriers. Impact of age and menopausal status were also evaluated. Mean DT of all invasive cancers was shorter in carriers (45 days CI: 26-73) than non-carriers (84 days CI: 58-131) (P = 0.048). Mean age at diagnosis was lower in carriers (40 years) than non-carriers (45 years) (P = 0.007). At multivariable analysis only age (P = 0.03), not risk-group (P = 0.26) nor menopause (P = 0.58) correlated significantly with DT. The mean growth rate slowed down to half in each successive 10 years-older group. In conclusion, age at detection indicated the growth rates of hereditary and familial breast cancers. It is recommended that the screening frequency should be adjusted according to a woman's age and a high-sensitive biannual test may be appropriate before the age of 40 years.

Incidence and treatment of recurrent plantar fibromatosis by surgery and postoperative radiotherapy.

BACKGROUND: The incidence of plantar fibromatosis (PF) is unknown. Sometimes PF tends to recur repetitively after surgical treatment. In our institute we have used postoperative radiotherapy in an attempt to diminish the change on recurrence. METHODS: The Dutch Network and National Database for Pathology (PALGA) was consulted to establish the incidence of plantar fibromatosis (PF). Data from 9 patients (11 feet) with PF referred to our institute for recurrent disease were analyzed and the role of postoperative radiotherapy in prevention of recurrence was studied. RESULTS: An average of 1.2 operations for PF was performed per 100,000 citizens yearly in the Netherlands. Twenty-six operations were performed and postoperative radiotherapy was used in 6 cases. Plantar fasciectomy was associated with the lowest recurrence rate. After microscopically incomplete excision or excision of early recurrence (< or =6 months) alone all tumors recurred, while recurrence was rarely observed after adjuvant radiotherapy. However, radiotherapy was associated with significantly impaired functional outcome in 3 cases. CONCLUSIONS: Plantar fibromatosis is relatively rare. Plantar fasciectomy seems to be the operation of choice. Although effective in decreasing the recurrence rate, adjuvant radiotherapy should be used very selectively because of its serious side effects.

High-dose chemotherapy with hematopoietic stem-cell rescue for high-risk breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: The use of high-dose adjuvant chemotherapy for high-risk primary breast cancer is controversial. We studied its efficacy in patients with 4 to 9 or 10 or more tumor-positive axillary lymph nodes. METHODS: Patients younger than 56 years of age who had undergone surgery for breast cancer and who had no distant metastases were eligible if they had at least four tumor-positive axillary lymph nodes. Patients in the conventional-dose group received fluorouracil, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide (FEC) every three weeks for five courses, followed by radiotherapy and tamoxifen. The high-dose treatment was identical, except that high-dose chemotherapy (6 g of cyclophosphamide per square meter of body-surface area, 480 mg of thiotepa per square meter, and 1600 mg of carboplatin per square meter) with autologous peripheral-blood hematopoietic progenitor-cell transplantation replaced the fifth course of FEC. RESULTS: Of the 885 patients, 442 were assigned to the high-dose group and 443 to the conventional-dose group. After a median follow-up of 57 months, the actuarial 5-year relapse-free survival rates were 59 percent in the conventional-dose group and 65 percent in the high-dose group (hazard ratio for relapse in the high-dose group, 0.83; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.66 to 1.03; P=0.09). In the group with 10 or more positive nodes, the relapse-free survival rates were 51 percent in the conventional-dose group and 61 percent in the high-dose group (P=0.05 by the log-rank test; hazard ratio for relapse, 0.71; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.50 to 1.00). CONCLUSIONS: High-dose alkylating therapy improves relapse-free survival among patients with stage II or III breast cancer and 10 or more positive axillary lymph nodes. This benefit may be confined to patients with HER-2/neu-negative tumors.

Gene expression profiling predicts clinical outcome of breast cancer.

Breast cancer patients with the same stage of disease can have markedly different treatment responses and overall outcome. The strongest predictors for metastases (for example, lymph node status and histological grade) fail to classify accurately breast tumours according to their clinical behaviour. Chemotherapy or hormonal therapy reduces the risk of distant metastases by approximately one-third; however, 70-80% of patients receiving this treatment would have survived without it. None of the signatures of breast cancer gene expression reported to date allow for patient-tailored therapy strategies. Here we used DNA microarray analysis on primary breast tumours of 117 young patients, and applied supervised classification to identify a gene expression signature strongly predictive of a short interval to distant metastases ('poor prognosis' signature) in patients without tumour cells in local lymph nodes at diagnosis (lymph node negative). In addition, we established a signature that identifies tumours of BRCA1 carriers. The poor prognosis signature consists of genes regulating cell cycle, invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis. This gene expression profile will outperform all currently used clinical parameters in predicting disease outcome. Our findings provide a strategy to select patients who would benefit from adjuvant therapy.