Long-term results suggest that after resection of locally recurrent breast cancer, patients should also undergo adjuvant chemotherapy, researchers found.
After 5 years, 69% of 85 women who had chemotherapy achieved disease-free survival compared with 57% of 77 women who did not have chemotherapy (P=0.0455), Stefan Aebi, MD, head of medical oncology at Luzerner Kantonsspital, in Luzerne, Switzerland, reported at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium here.
That translated into a 41% reduction in the relative risk of disease progression, he said in presenting the results of the CALOR (Chemotherapy as Adjuvant for Locally Recurrent Breast Cancer) trial.
In terms of overall survival, 88% of women who had adjuvant chemotherapy achieved it compared with 76% of those not treated with chemotherapy (P=0.02), he added in his oral report. That translated into a relative risk reduction of 59%.
The trial originally was planned to enroll more nearly 1,000 patients to resolve the question of whether chemotherapy or surgery was a superior scheme, but the investigators found that clinicians would not allow their patients into the trial.