NCCN Guidelines Insights: Breast Cancer, Version 1.2017.

These NCCN Guidelines Insights highlight the important updates/changes to the surgical axillary staging, radiation therapy, and systemic therapy recommendations for hormone receptor-positive disease in the 1.2017 version of the NCCN Guidelines for Breast Cancer. This report summarizes these updates and discusses the rationale behind them. Updates on new drug approvals, not available at press time, can be found in the most recent version of these guidelines at NCCN.org.

Invasive Breast Cancer Version 1.2016, NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death. The overall management of breast cancer includes the treatment of local disease with surgery, radiation therapy, or both, and the treatment of systemic disease with cytotoxic chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, biologic therapy, or combinations of these. This article outlines the NCCN Guidelines specific to breast cancer that is locoregional (restricted to one region of the body), and discusses the management of clinical stage I, II, and IIIA (T3N1M0) tumors. For NCCN Guidelines on systemic adjuvant therapy after locoregional management of clinical stage I, II and IIIA (T3N1M0) and for management for other clinical stages of breast cancer, see the complete version of these guidelines at NCCN.org.

NCCN Guidelines Insights Breast Cancer, Version 1.2016.

These NCCN Guideline Insights highlight the important updates to the systemic therapy recommendations in the 2016 NCCN Guidelines for Breast Cancer. In the most recent version of these guidelines, the NCCN Breast Cancer Panel included a new section on the principles of preoperative systemic therapy. In addition, based on new evidence, the panel updated systemic therapy recommendations for women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer in the adjuvant and metastatic disease settings and for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. This report summarizes these recent updates and discusses the rationale behind them.

Breast Cancer Version 2.2015.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death. The overall management of breast cancer includes the treatment of local disease with surgery, radiation therapy, or both, and the treatment of systemic disease with cytotoxic chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, biologic therapy, or combinations of these. This portion of the NCCN Guidelines discusses recommendations specific to the locoregional management of clinical stage I, II, and IIIA (T3N1M0) tumors.

Breast cancer version 3.2014.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death. The overall management of breast cancer includes the treatment of local disease with surgery, radiation therapy, or both, and the treatment of systemic disease with cytotoxic chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, biologic therapy, or combinations of these. The NCCN Guidelines specific to management of large clinical stage II and III tumors are discussed in this article. These guidelines are the work of the members of the NCCN Breast Cancer Panel. Expert medical clinical judgment is required to apply these guidelines in the context of an individual patient to provide optimal care. Although not stated at every decision point of the guidelines, patient participation in prospective clinical trials is the preferred option of treatment for all stages of breast cancer.

Association of cancer diagnosis with disability status among older survivors of colorectal cancer: a population-based retrospective cohort study.

Background: Older cancer survivors likely experience physical function limitations due to cancer and its treatments, leading to disability and early mortality. Existing studies have focused on factors associated with surgical complications and mortality risk rather than factors associated with the development of poor disability status (DS), a proxy measure of poor performance status, in cancer survivors. We aimed to identify factors associated with the development of poor DS among older survivors of colorectal cancer (CRC) and compare poor DS rates to an age-sex-matched, non-cancer cohort. Methods: This retrospective cohort study utilized administrative data from the Texas Cancer Registry Medicare-linked database. The study cohort consisted of 13,229 survivors of CRC diagnosed between 2005 and 2013 and an age-sex-matched, non-cancer cohort of 13,225 beneficiaries. The primary outcome was poor DS, determined by Davidoff's method, using predictors from 12 months of Medicare claims after cancer diagnosis. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to identify risk factors associated with the development of poor DS. Results: Among the survivors of CRC, 97% were 65 years or older. After a 9-year follow-up, 54% of survivors of CRC developed poor DS. Significant factors associated with future poor DS included: age at diagnosis (hazard ratio [HR] = 3.50 for >80 years old), female sex (HR = 1.50), race/ethnicity (HR = 1.34 for Hispanic and 1.21 for Black), stage at diagnosis (HR = 2.26 for distant metastasis), comorbidity index (HR = 2.18 for >1), and radiation therapy (HR = 1.21). Having cancer (HR = 1.07) was significantly associated with developing poor DS in the pooled cohorts; age and race/ethnicity were also significant factors. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that a CRC diagnosis is independently associated with a small increase in the risk of developing poor DS after accounting for other known factors. The study identified risk factors for developing poor DS in CRC survivors, including Hispanic and Black race/ethnicity, age, sex, histologic stage, and comorbidities. These findings underscore the importance of consistent physical function assessments, particularly among subsets of older survivors of CRC who are at higher risk of disability, to prevent developing poor DS.

Other primary malignancies in breast cancer patients treated with breast conserving surgery and radiation therapy.

BACKGROUND: Our purpose was to examine the incidence and impact on survival of other primary malignancies (OPM) outside of the breast in breast cancer patients and to identify risk factors associated with OPM. METHODS: Patients with stage 0-III breast cancer treated with breast conserving therapy at our center from 1979 to 2007 were included. Risk factors were compared between patients with/without OPM. Logistic regression was used to identify factors that were associated with OPM. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) were calculated. RESULTS: Among 4,198 patients in this study, 276 (6.6 %) developed an OPM after breast cancer treatment. Patients with OPM were older and had a higher proportion of stage 0/I disease and contralateral breast cancer compared with those without OPM. In a multivariate analysis, older patients, those with contralateral breast cancer, and those who did not receive chemotherapy or hormone therapy were more likely to develop OPM after breast cancer. Patients without OPM had better overall survival. The SIR for all OPM sites combined after a first primary breast cancer was 2.91 (95 % confidence interval: 2.57-3.24). Significantly elevated risks were seen for numerous cancer sites, with SIRs ranging from 1.84 for lung cancer to 5.69 for ovarian cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that breast cancer patients have an increased risk of developing OPM over the general population. The use of systemic therapy was not associated with increased risk of OPM. In addition to screening for a contralateral breast cancer and recurrences, breast cancer survivors should undergo screening for other malignancies.

Breast cancer, version 3.2013: featured updates to the NCCN guidelines.

These NCCN Guidelines Insights highlight the important updates specific to the management of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer in the 2013 version of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for Breast Cancer. These include new first-line and subsequent therapy options for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

Metastatic breast cancer, version 1.2012: featured updates to the NCCN guidelines.

These NCCN Guidelines Insights highlight the important updates/changes specific to the management of metastatic breast cancer in the 2012 version of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Breast Cancer. These changes/updates include the issue of retesting of biomarkers (estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) on recurrent disease, new information regarding first-line combination endocrine therapy for metastatic disease, a new section on monitoring of patients with metastatic disease, and new information on endocrine therapy combined with an mTOR inhibitor as a subsequent therapeutic option.

Trends in and outcomes from sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) alone vs. SLNB with axillary lymph node dissection for node-positive breast cancer patients: experience from the SEER database.

BACKGROUND: Complete axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) after a positive sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) remains the standard practice. As nodal surgery has long been considered a staging procedure without a clear survival benefit, the need for ALND in all patients is debatable. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in survival for patients undergoing SLNB alone versus SLNB with complete ALND. METHODS: Patients with breast cancer who underwent SLNB and were found to have nodal metastases were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1998-2004). Clinicopathologic and outcomes data were examined for patients who underwent SLNB alone versus SLNB with ALND. RESULTS: We identified 26,986 patients with disease-positive lymph nodes; 4,425 (16.4%) underwent SLNB alone, and 22,561 (83.6%) underwent SLNB with ALND. Patients were significantly more likely to undergo SLNB alone if they were older (median 59 years old) or if the tumor was low grade and estrogen receptor positive. From 1998 to 2004, the proportion of patients with micrometastasis in the sentinel lymph nodes who underwent SLNB alone increased from 21.0 to 37.8% (P < 0.001). At a median follow-up of 50 months, there were no statistically significant differences in overall survival (OS) between patients who underwent SLNB alone versus complete ALND. CONCLUSIONS: There is an increasing trend toward omitting ALND in patients with micrometastatic nodal disease identified by SLNB. Compared with SLNB alone, completion ALND does not seem to be associated with improved survival for breast cancer patients with micrometastasis in the sentinel lymph nodes.