OBJECTIVE: Analyze the 5-year breast cancer specific-survival rate of women diagnosed with invasive non-metastatic disease, who as part of their primary treatment underwent surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. METHODS: Four hundred twenty eight patients diagnosed between 1998 and 2000 were recruited from all oncology services of the municipality of Juiz de Fora, MG, Brasil. Survival time was counted from the date of the histopathological diagnosis and the date of death due to breast cancer was considered the adverse event. Women alive until December 2005, the final date of the follow-up, were censored. For those who interrupt treatment, censor date was the last follow-up in the medical records. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were estimated, with the differences assessed by the log-rank test. RESULTS: Mean age was 51.2 years, and most (72.6%) were Caucasian. Clinical Stages II (47.4%) and III (38.6%) predominated. Breast cancer specific five-year survival rate was 82.0%. A worst survival was observed among women with disease diagnostic before menopause (p=0.02), with tumor size greater than 2.0cm (p=0.05), with lymph node involvement (p=0,000), in a more advanced disease stage (p=0.000), on a full adjuvant chemotherapy regimen (p=0.03), and who used hormone therapy (p=0.05). CONCLUSION: This research allowed identification of the profile and disease survival of breast cancer patients who used adjuvant chemotherapy. These results stimulated the adoption of intensive strategies by the local health authorities for disease control and prevention in this population, emphasizing the increasing need of breast cancer screening, mainly for women considered as of high risk and the availability of timely treatment for all cases diagnosed.
Breast cancer; Chemotherapy; Prognosis; Survival analysis
