The longitudinal risk of mortality between invasive ductal carcinoma and metaplastic breast carcinoma.

The management of metaplastic breast carcinoma (MBC) has largely paralleled the paradigms used for invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) in the current National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines of breast cancer. However, patients with IDC and MBC have been shown to have a different prognosis, and there are significant differences in risk and failure patterns after treatment. The purpose of this study was to compare breast cancer specific survival (BCSS) and hazard function between IDC and MBC. We included patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program with stage I-III IDC and MBC between 2000 and 2012. Statistical analyses were including chi-square analysis, life-table methods, multivariate Cox proportional hazards models, and propensity score matching (PSM). We identified 294,719 patients; 293,199 patients with IDC and 1520 patients with MBC. Multivariate analyses showed that the MBC subtype had significantly lower BCSS than the IDC subtype before and after PSM (p < 0.001). There were significant differences in the hazard curve between IDC and MBC. The hazard curve for breast cancer mortality in the IDC cohort peaked at 3 years (2%), and then changed to a slowly decreasing plateau after prolonged follow up. However, the hazard curve for breast cancer mortality in the MBC cohort peaked at 2 years (7%), then declined sharply between 3 and 6 years, and changed to a low death rate after a follow-up time exceeding 6 years. Subgroup analyses revealed that the hazard curves significantly differed between IDC and MBC after stratifying by tumor stage and hormone receptor status. Our study suggests that patients with MBC should receive more effective systemic agents and intensive follow-up because of their significantly augmented risk of death compared to IDC patients.

Analysis of the Trends in Publications on Clinical Cancer Research in Mainland China from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Database: Bibliometric Study.

BACKGROUND: The application of China's big data sector in cancer research is just the beginning. In recent decades, more and more Chinese scholars have used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database for clinical cancer research. A comprehensive bibliometric study is required to analyze the tendency of Chinese scholars to utilize the SEER database for clinical cancer research and provide a reference for the future of big data analytics. OBJECTIVE: Our study aimed to assess the trend of publications on clinical cancer research in mainland China from the SEER database. METHODS: We performed a PubMed search to identify papers published with data from the SEER database in mainland China until August 31, 2020. RESULTS: A total of 1566 papers utilizing the SEER database that were authored by investigators in mainland China were identified. Over the past years, significant growth in studies based on the SEER database was observed (P<.001). The top 5 research topics were breast cancer (213/1566, 13.6%), followed by colorectal cancer (185/1566, 11.8%), lung cancer (179/1566, 11.4%), gastrointestinal cancer (excluding colorectal cancer; 149/1566, 9.5%), and genital system cancer (93/1566, 5.9%). Approximately 75.2% (1178/1566) of papers were published from the eastern coastal region of China, and Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center (Shanghai, China) was the most active organization. Overall, 267 journals were analyzed in this study, of which Oncotarget was the most contributing journal (136/267, 50.9%). Of the 1566 papers studied, 585 (37.4%) were published in the second quartile, 489 (31.2%) in the third quartile, 312 (19.9%) in the first quartile, and 80 (5.1%) in the fourth quartile, with 100 (6.4%) having an unknown Journal Citation Reports ranking. CONCLUSIONS: Clinical cancer research based on the SEER database in mainland China underwent constant and rapid growth during recent years. High-quality and comprehensive cancer databases based on Chinese demographic data are urgently needed.