Nationwide registry
Chronologically Changing Patterns in the Survival of Korean Patients With Breast Cancer
Lee et al. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. 2018.
Study in one sentence
The researchers examined how survival among Korean patients with invasive breast cancer changed across four historical periods.
How was the study performed?
The study analyzed 60,571 patients with invasive breast cancer recorded in the Korean National Cancer Registry.
The study period covered 21 years and was divided into four intervals from 1988 to 2008.
Main finding
Five-year overall survival was higher in the most recent period analyzed (2003–2008) than in the earliest period (1988–1992): reported as 92.2% compared with 79.0%.
The authors associated improving survival with changes in clinical characteristics, earlier diagnosis and treatment over time.
What this may mean for patients
The study documents substantial improvement in breast cancer survival in Korea over the historical period examined.
It also illustrates the importance of stage, tumor biology and treatment era when interpreting national survival figures.
What this study does not prove
Source
View the original publicationDOI: 10.1007/s10549-018-4892-x · PubMed ID: 30088179
Editorial note
These figures are historical (diagnoses ending in 2008) and must not be presented as a current survival estimate or as an individual patient's prognosis.