A new study has reported that while young women may be prone to relapse during the first few years after diagnosis, their overall prognosis is surprisingly good. The study was designed to investigate the impact of young age at breast cancer diagnosis on survival. The prognosis of young breast cancer patients has been considered to be far worse than that of older patients. The study included 268 premenopausal women with a median follow-up period of 74 months. 33.5% of the women had estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) tumors, 34.6% had progesterone receptor-negative (PR-) tumors, and 15.2% of the tumors were HER2 overexpressing HER2+).

Five-year breast cancer-specific survival was found to be 81.1% in the study population. The 10-year survival rate was 72.3%. Most of the recurrences (91.8% ) occurred within seven years of diagnosis. Among the 38 women who were 35 years or younger, only two experienced recurrences beyond seven years (however, note that the median follow-up period was just over six years). Lymph node ratio (the number of positive axillary lymph nodes divided by the number of examined nodes) was found to be the most significant independent predictor of poor disease-free survival and breast cancer-specific survival. The authors comment that while the study found a high relapse rate in the youngest women during the first few years after diagnosis, their prognosis as a whole was better than expected.

Please see our article on how young breast cancer survivors can avoid a recurrence.