[Prognostic factors in breast cancer with contralateral supraclavicular or axillary lymphatic metastases]. / Factores pronósticos en cáncer de mama con metástasis a ganglios supraclaviculares o axila contralateral.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate prognostic factor differences between surviving and decreased breast cancer patients in clinical stage IV with supraclavicular or contralateral axilla metastasis when first seen. METHODS: From the clinical records of 13 years (1975-88) two groups of ten patients each were obtained. Group 1 were women alive and free of disease for more than five years. Group 2 had similar characteristics but had died of the disease. In both groups clinical data were evaluated (age, menstrual status and survival); from slides the histologic factors like tumor size, nodal status, fibrosis percentage, inflammatory infiltrate, nuclear grade and necrosis were evaluated; immunohistochemistry of CD34 for angiogenesis, cathepsin D, p53 antioncogen, c-erb-B2 oncogen, epidermic growth factor, estrogen and progesterone receptors and cellular kinetics were performed; Kaplan Meier survival curves were constructed for the factors showing intergroup differences. RESULTS: The factors associated to the living patients were: low inflammatory infiltrate (p = 0.001), low fibrosis (p = 0.007), lower p53 expression (p = 0.03) and positive estrogen receptor (p = 0.03); other factors were marginally associated: positive progesterone receptor (p = 0.07) and having less than 6 positive lymph nodes (p = 0.07).