Background: Loco-regional therapy (LRT) in de novo metastatic breast cancer (MBC) has been investigated in several clinical trials, with heterogeneous and conflicting results.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of de novo MBC patients treated with front-line chemotherapy (FLC) followed by LRT of the primary tumor. Our aims were to evaluate the characteristics, treatment, and oncological outcomes in terms of progression-free survival (PFS), distant progression-free survival (DPFS), and overall survival (OS) of de novo MBC. We also investigated possible subgroups of patients with better outcomes according to menopausal status, biological sub-type, location, number of metastases, and radiologic complete response after FLC.
Results: We included 61 patients in the study. After a median follow-up of 55 months, disease progression occurred in 60.7% of patients and 49.2% died. There were no significant differences in PFS, DPFS, and OS between different subgroups of de novo MBC patients. A trend toward better PFS and DPFS was observed in triple-positive tumors, without a statistically significant difference in OS.
Conclusions: No specific subgroup of de novo MBC patients showed a statistically significant survival advantage after FLC followed by LRT of the primary tumor.
Keywords: breast cancer; chemotherapy; loco-regional treatment; metastasis; surgery.