Sunday, November 29 | 11:00 a.m. to 11:10 a.m. | S2-SSBR01-4 | Room S404
How a breast cancer is found, whether through screening, as an interval cancer between screens, or because of symptoms, is not routinely recorded in tumor registries. In this presentation, researchers will report on how the method of detection relates to survival at the population level.
The team, led by Jean Seely, MD, from the University of Ottawa in Canada, linked seven datasets to identify the method of detection for women aged 18 to 104 who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2010 and 2022 and had no prior history of the disease. The researchers evaluated detection method, tumor stage, molecular subtype, age, and comorbidities in relation to all-cause mortality, adjusting for lead time.
The cohort included 123,950 women with a mean age of 62.5 years. Cancers were detected symptomatically in 49.6% of women, as interval cancers in 15.1%, and by screening in 35.3%. Median follow-up was 4.6 years, and the probability of death from any cause was 5.5% at one year and 28.7% at 10 years.
In this analysis, the association between detection method and mortality changed over time. At diagnosis, symptomatic detection carried a higher mortality hazard than screen detection (hazard ratio [HR], 1.67), and that hazard grew each year (HR, 1.11 per year). Interval cancers began with a slightly lower hazard (HR, 0.91) that rose more steeply (HR, 1.25 per year). By 10 years, hazards were higher for interval cancers (HR, 1.52) and symptomatic cancers (HR, 2.13) than for screen-detected cancers.
The authors concluded that screen-detected breast cancer was associated with lower all-cause mortality, and the association persisted after adjusting for lead time.
Attend this session to learn more.
