Individual risk profiling for breast cancer recurrence: Towards tailored follow-up schemes

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer follow-up is not tailored to the risk of locoregional recurrences (LRRs) in individual patients or as a function of time. The objective of this study was to identify prognostic factors and to estimate individual and time-dependent LRR risk rates. Methods: Prognostic factors for LRR were identified by a scoping literature review, expert consultation, and stepwise multivariate regression analysis based on 5 years of data from women diagnosed with breast cancer in the Netherlands in 2005 or 2006 (n=17 762). Inter-patient variability was elucidated by examples of 5-year risk profiles of average-, medium-, and high-risk patients, whereby 6-month interval risks were deriv..