Long-term survival after high-dose chemotherapy followed by peripheral stem cell rescue for high-risk, locally advanced/inflammatory, and metastatic breast cancer.

Patients with high-risk locally advanced/inflammatory and oligometastatic (≤3 sites) breast cancer frequently relapse or experience early progression. High-dose chemotherapy combined with peripheral stem cell rescue may prolong progression-free survival/relapse-free survival (PFS/RFS) and overall survival (OS). In this study, patients initiated high-dose chemotherapy with STAMP-V (carboplatin, thiotepa, and cyclophosphamide), ACT (doxorubicin, paclitaxel, and cyclophosphamide), or tandem melphalan and STAMP-V. Eighty-six patients were diagnosed with locally advanced/inflammatory (17 inflammatory) breast cancer, and 12 were diagnosed with oligometastatic breast cancer. Median follow-up was 84 months (range, 6-136 months) for patients with locally advanced cancer and 40 months (range, 24-62 months) for those with metastatic cancer. In the patients with locally advanced cancer, 5-year RFS and OS were 53% (95% CI, 41%-63%) and 71% (95% CI, 60%-80%), respectively, hormone receptors were positive in 74%, and HER2 overexpression was seen in 23%. In multivariate analysis, hormone receptor-positive disease and lower stage were associated with better 5-year RFS (60% for ER [estrogen receptor]/PR [progesterone receptor]-positive versus 30% for ER/PR-negative; P < .01) and OS (83% for ER/PR-positive versus 38% for ER/PR-negative; P < .001). In the patients with metastatic cancer, 3-year PFS and OS were 49% (95% CI, 19%-73%) and 73% (95% CI, 38%-91%), respectively. The favorable long-term RFS/PFS and OS for high-dose chemotherapy with peripheral stem cell rescue in this selected patient population reflect the relative safety of the procedure and warrant validation in defined subgroups through prospective, randomized, multi-institutional trials.

Conditional survival and cause-specific mortality after autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation for hematological malignancies.

The probability of survival is conventionally calculated from autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (aHCT). Conditional survival takes into account the changing probability of survival with time survived, but this is not known for aHCT populations. We determined disease- and cause-specific conditional survival for 2388 patients treated with aHCT over a period of 20 years at a single institution. A total of 1054 deaths (44% of the cohort) were observed: 78% attributed to recurrent disease; 9% to subsequent malignancies and 6% to cardiopulmonary disease. Estimated probability of relative survival was 62% at 5 years and 50% at 10 years from aHCT. On the other hand, the 5-year relative survival was 70, 75, 81 and 88% after having survived 1, 2, 5 and 10 years after aHCT, respectively. The cohort was at a 13.9-fold increased risk of death compared with the general population (95% confidence interval (CI)=13.1-14.8). The risk of death approached that of the general population for 10-year survivors (standardized mortality ratio (SMR)=1.4, 95% CI=0.9-1.9), with the exception of female Hodgkin's lymphoma patients transplanted before 1995 at age 40 years (SMR=6.0, 95% CI=1.9-14.0). Among those who had survived 10 years, nonrelapse-related mortality rates exceeded relapse-related mortality rates. This study provides clinically relevant survival estimates after aHCT, and helps inform interventional strategies.