Clinico-Epidemiological Study of Elderly Breast Cancer in a Developing Country: Egypt

Context: The prognosis and treatment outcome in elderly breast cancer is not well known. Aim: To study the prognosis and treatment outcome in elderly breast cancer. Methods and materials: This a retrospective study of breast cancer patients’ ≥70years in the period from January 2005 until December 2010 in Egypt. Kaplan Meir overall survival (OS) analysis and disease-free survival (DFS) were done and they were correlated with different prognostic factors. Results: Among 186 old patients, 139 one were analyzed. The median age was 73.4 years at diagnosis with a mean of 75. Most patients (70.4%) were in the range of 70-74 from urban areas (89.2%) with performance status 1-2 (90.6%) and with ≤ 2 co-morbidity (67.6%). Stage III and IV presented 43.9%. Positive ER and PR was 83.4% and 75.5% respectively. Surgery was done in 77.7% of cases with 62.6% modified radical mastectomy and 15.1% conservative lumpectomy and axillary clearance. Treatment included mostly hormonal treatment (79.9%), radiotherapy (47.5%) and lastly chemotherapy (18.7%). The 5-year OS and DFS were 52% and 53.4% respectively. The median progression free survival (PFS) in metastatic patients was 4 months. The DFS was significantly affected by performance status (PS), tumor stage, and presence of metastasis. (P-value = 0.018, Conclusion: the 5-year OS was lower than the developed country. The majority of deaths (55.7%) were not related to breast cancer. Primary tumor stage and metastasis were significant prognostic factor for DFS.