Background: Elderly patients with metastatic breast cancer have a prognosis and outcome that may be dependent on a host of factors.
Patients and methods: We retrospectively analyzed 401 female breast cancer patients who developed metastatic disease after the age of 70 years in order to define potential prognostic factors for specific survival at the time of first recurrence.
Results: With a median follow-up of 60 months from the time of recurrence, the median specific survival was 21.0 months (95% CI 17.0-23.0). In multivariate analysis we demonstrated that negative hormonal receptor status (p = 0.002), presence of positive lymph nodes at initial cancer diagnosis (hazard ratio, HR = 1.37; 95% CI 1.07-1.75; p = 0.01), site of metastasis (p < 10(-4)) and metastasis-free interval (HR = 0.99; 95% CI 0.95-0.99; p = 0.008) constituted unfavorable independent prognostic factors able to predict specific survival from the time of metastatic occurrence. Age at initial diagnosis, Scarff-Bloom Richardson grade and adjuvant treatments were significant only in univariate analysis.
Conclusion: These survival prognostic factors associated with the use of a specific geriatric questionnaire to assess frailty may assist physicians in evaluating the patient's survival potential and choose a tailored treatment to this cancer population.