Does distant recurrence risk "drop dramatically" after 20 years?

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Anonymous
Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
edited July 2021 in Hormonal Therapy - Before, During, and After
Does distant recurrence risk "drop dramatically" after 20 years?
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  • orangeflower
    orangeflower Member Posts: 146
    edited July 2021

    Hi all. I had an oncologist appointment recently, and she said that the risk of distant recurrence "drops dramatically" after 20 years for hormone receptor positive breast cancer. I'm baffled by what she said because a study came out a few years ago showing that the risk of distant recurrence remained constant, year after year, from years 5 to 20. I've linked the BCO article about it below. It seems to say that the researchers only followed the women for 20 years. To me, the results of the study imply that the risk of distant recurrence probably remains the same for at least some period of time beyond 20 years. Am I missing something? I don't know why she thinks it drops dramatically, and I feel intimidated from asking too many questions.

    https://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/distant-recurrence-risk-steady-20-years-later

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  • Beesie
    Beesie Member Posts: 12,240
    edited July 2021

    orangeflower, you asked the same question recently in someone else's post. I replied there; take a look at the chart that I included in my response. For ER+/HER2- cancers, at 20 years, 97% of all recurrences will have happened. So the risk after after 20 years is very small.

    That said, according to this study, over 50% of metastatic recurrence risk for ER+/HER2- cancers does occur over years 5 - 20, which is the period that that the study your referenced is looking at. That study does not look beyond year 20. Nor does it break out recurrence percentages by year - it groups recurrences into 5 year periods, which can be misleading.

    The numbers between the study I referenced and the study your referenced aren't the same, but the numbers aren't far off. If you look in depth at the numbers, you will see that the risk for ER+/HER2- node negative overall and in the later years is very low. When the numbers are that small, just a 2% shift over a couple of years can change the % of recurrences in years 10-20 year from 20% to 50%.

    https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/145/topic...


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  • orangeflower
    orangeflower Member Posts: 146
    edited July 2021

    I don't remember asking that question specifically but thanks for answering.

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