Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Anatomic and biologic indicators of prognosis provide the bases for management of patients with cancer of the breast. Combinations of these indicators are potentially more accurate than any alone. This review was undertaken to evaluate the prognostic relationship between stage and steroid hormone receptors.

METHODS:

The literature was reviewed relative to the influences of tumor size, axillary metastases, and tumor estrogen receptors on the survival of patients with cancer of the breast.

RESULTS:

Axillary node status is of primary importance as a predictor of recurrence and survival. Tumor size has only a secondary influence, but is prognostically useful in the absence of metastases. Estrogen and progesterone receptors provide prognostic information that is independent of axillary stage, but the influence is weak, often transient, and attributable at least partly to a close association with other biologic indicators of favorable prognosis.

CONCLUSIONS:

Hormone receptors add to the prognostic information provided by anatomic stage, but the contribution is insufficient to support a decision for or against systemic adjuvant therapy.