[Prognostic factors in breast cancer with contralateral supraclavicular or axillary lymphatic metastases].

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate prognostic factor differences between surviving and decreased breast cancer patients in clinical stage IV with supraclavicular or contralateral axilla metastasis when first seen.

METHODS

From the clinical records of 13 years (1975-88) two groups of ten patients each were obtained. Group 1 were women alive and free of disease for more than five years. Group 2 had similar characteristics but had died of the disease. In both groups clinical data were evaluated (age, menstrual status and survival); from slides the histologic factors like tumor size, nodal status, fibrosis percentage, inflammatory infiltrate, nuclear grade and necrosis were evaluated; immunohistochemistry of CD34 for angiogenesis, cathepsin D, p53 antioncogen, c-erb-B2 oncogen, epidermic growth factor, estrogen and progesterone receptors and cellular kinetics were performed; Kaplan Meier survival curves were constructed for the factors showing intergroup differences.

RESULTS

The factors associated to the living patients were: low inflammatory infiltrate (p = 0.001), low fibrosis (p = 0.007), lower p53 expression (p = 0.03) and positive estrogen receptor (p = 0.03); other factors were marginally associated: positive progesterone receptor (p = 0.07) and having less than 6 positive lymph nodes (p = 0.07).