Source
Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Hospital (Institute), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
To analyze the clinical characteristics, efficiency of treatment and potential prognostic factors of breast cancer patients with liver metastases (BCLM).
METHODS:
The data of clinical characteristics, response to treatment and survival were retrospectively analyzed in 152 breast cancer patients with liver metastasis using SPSS 11.5.
RESULTS:
The median disease free survival (DFS), the median survival of recurrence (MSR) and median time to progress (TTP) of this series was 21 months, 16 months and 7.4 months, respectively. The response rate in chemotherapy group was higher than that in the transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) group (37.7% vs. 53%, P = 0. 039). The TTP was longer (7 m vs. 10 m, P = 0.048) and the response rate (63.3% vs. 40.0%, P = 0.04) in taxanes-based chemotherapy group was significantly higher than that in non-taxanes-containing regimen. The MSR in patients with single liver metastases treated by TACE was longer than that by chemotherapy (16 m vs. 30 m, P = 0.0052), but it was not observed in the patients with multiple metastases. Pathological tumor size (PT) and axillary lymph node status at diagnosis, negative estrogen receptor (ER) status, abnormal ALT level induced by liver metastases, metastastic tumor size were significantly correlated with shorter survival.
CONCLUSION:
The effective chemotherapy especially the taxane-containing regimen and TACE may improve outcome for breast cancer patient with liver metastasis.