BACKGROUND

Breast cancer treatment is increasingly based on biologic instead of anatomic factors; however, some decisions still rely on anatomic information obtained at axillary lymph node dissection (ALND), such as chemotherapy administration. The goal of this study was to determine if the Oncotype DX 21-gene recurrence score (RS) or the number of positive lymph nodes (+LNs) were stronger predictors of overall survival (OS), to potentially support ALND omission.

METHODS

The National Cancer Database was queried for patients aged ≥18 years with non-metastatic, hormone receptor-positive (HR+)/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-) breast cancer with available RS treated with upfront surgery from 2018 to 2019. We summarized clinical characteristics, estimated OS via Kaplan-Meier curves, and performed regression analyses to determine the association of RS and +LNs with OS.

RESULTS

Among 71,235 patients analyzed, OS was significantly worse for patients with RS >25 compared with ≤25 (p<0.0001) and for patients with increasing numbers of +LNs (p < 0.0001). Within most LN categories (0, 1-3, 4-9, or ≥10 +LNs), patients with RS >25 had worse OS than patients with RS ≤25 (p < 0.0001, p < 0.0001, p = 0.0024, and p = 0.1767, respectively). On regression analysis, RS >25 and +LNs significantly predicted OS. RS >25 was a stronger predictor of OS than number of +LNs, but the model combining RS and number of +LNs was stronger than either factor alone.

CONCLUSIONS

This study of patients with HR+/HER2- breast cancer suggests RS is a stronger predictor of death compared with LN status. This supports the idea that biologic factors may be more impactful than anatomic factors but does not currently obviate the need for ALND.