ecancermedicalscience

Research

Clinico-pathological characteristics and treatment outcomes of patients with de-novo metastatic breast cancer: study from a tertiary cancer centre in North-East India

29 Jul 2025
Manas Dubey, Partha Sarathi Roy, Ankur Bhattacharyya, Kakoli Medhi, Rajdeep Bose, Munlima Hazarika, Pompi Daimari Buragohain, Zaveri Mohinta, Anupam Sarma

Background: Due to fundamental biological differences, de-novo metastatic breast cancer (MBC) generally exhibits a more favourable prognosis compared to recurrent MBC. There is a notable absence of databases documenting de-novo MBC patients from North-East India.

Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis of 195 patients was performed from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2022, covering a span of 3 years. Clinical, pathological and radiological data were extracted from medical records.

Results: The median age at diagnosis was 50 years. The median duration of symptoms was 5 months, with 66% of patients being postmenopausal. The predominant histological type was infiltrating ductal carcinoma. Baseline receptor status indicated that 108 patients (55.38%) were hormone receptor (HR) positive, 97 patients (49%) were positive for human epidermal growth factor receptor and 34 patients (16.4%) had triple-negative breast cancer. The most frequent sites of metastasis included bone (28.7%), lung (27%) and liver (17.4%), followed by non-regional lymph nodes (11.8%) and brain (5.6%). Among the 195 patients, 136 (70%) received treatment. Seventy-three patients (37.4%) underwent single-agent chemotherapy with taxanes, 48 patients (24.2%) received poly-chemotherapy and 12 patients (6.15%) were treated with up-front hormone therapy. Of the 110 patients who were HR positive, 57.2% received endocrine therapy (15 patients (13.6%) on tamoxifen and 48 patients (43.6%) on aromatase inhibitors). Among the 97 patients who were Her2-neu positive, 63 patients (65%) received trastuzumab-based therapy. The study reported a 3-year overall survival rate of 24%. Multivariate analysis indicated that the presence of oligo-metastasis, along with Her2-positive and HR-positive status, correlated with improved patient outcomes.

In conclusion, our findings suggest that patients with Her2-positive, HR-positive and oligometastatic disease experience significantly enhanced outcomes. Enhancing access to novel therapeutic options for our patient population is likely to result in improved prognoses.

Related Articles

Camilla Engelsmann, Gitte Wooler, Vladimira Horvat, Shailesh Balasaheb Kolekar
Simran Malik, Sudipta Mukherjee, Pralay Shankar Ghosh, Santanu Bagchi, Gaurav Goel, Soumyadip Chatterji, Saugata Sen, Debashree Guha Adhya, Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya, Sanjay Bhattacharya
Sasongko Hadi Priyono, Winardi Budiwinata, Budianto Tedjowitono, Effendy, Muhamad Daffa Ibnurasy Pratama
Rohini Sebastian, Josh Thomas Georgy, Arun George, Prisca Santhanam, Raiza Philip, Anjana Joel, Ajoy Oommen John, Deepa Susan Joy Philip, Divya Bala Thumaty, Thomas Alex Kodiatte, Ashish Singh, Rekha Pai
Ghazal Tansir, Akhil Santhosh, Akash Kumar, Hemavathi Baskarane, Mohit Kumar Divakar, Vishakha Hooda, Arundhati J R Dev, Chandra Prakash Prasad, Ishaan Gupta, Saran Kumar, Pranay Tanwar, Atul Sharma, Sameer Bakhshi, Atul Batra
María Florencia Illia, Giuliana Colucci, Angeles Ballester, Mariana Eiben, Fernando Paesani, Francisco Von Stecher, Máximo de la Vega, Florencia Perazzo, Pablo Mandó