Prof Robert Hills speaks to ecancer about a study presented at SABCS 2024 which looked at immediate breast surgery versus deferral of surgery in women aged 70+ years with operable breast cancer.

He explains that the researchers acquired individual patient data from every woman in three randomised trials into immediate versus deferred surgery.

Prof Hills reports that there is very good improvement with surgery in local control and that the local recurrence or progression rate is reduced by around three quarters.

He also reports a small but highly significant improvement in distant recurrence rates which translates in a reduction of about a third of deaths in breast cancer.