Postmastectomy irradiation in high-risk breast cancer patients. Present status of the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group trials.

All pre- and postmenopausal high-risk breast cancer patients in the protocols DBCG 77 of the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group received postmastectomy irradiation before randomization to either adjuvant systemic therapy or no such treatment. The actuarial loco-regional recurrence rate at 9 years was 6-17%, with the lowest rate in patients who also received additional adjuvant chemotherapy or tamoxifen. In a subsequent study (DBCG 82) the role of postmastectomy irradiation together with systemic treatment was evaluated in high-risk patients. Pre- and menopausal patients were randomized to postmastectomy irradiation + CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, 5-fluorouracil), CMF alone or CMF + TAM (tamoxifen). Postmenopausal patients were randomized to postmastectomy irradiation + TAM, TAM or CMF + TAM. At 4 years the loco-regional recurrence rate was significantly lower in the irradiated patients (5-7% vs. 23-33%). Further, disease-free survival was significantly improved in both pre- and postmenopausal irradiated patients compared with those who had only systemic treatment. At present, there are no significant differences between survival in the treatment groups. Thus, adjuvant systemic treatment alone (chemotherapy and/or tamoxifen) did not prevent loco-regional recurrences in high-risk patients after mastectomy and axillary lymph node sampling. However, a longer observation time is necessary to evaluate the consequence of primary optimal loco-regional tumour control in high-risk breast cancer patients with respect to survival.