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Late breast cancer recurrence

New PhD thesis from DCE investigates the risk, prognosis, and prevention of late breast cancer recurrence.

2021.10.15 | Tina Christensen

Rikke Nørgaard Pedersen, who defended her PhD thesis on Wednesday, conducted four studies on late breast cancer recurrence, defined as recurrence ten years or more after the primary breast cancer diagnosis. The studies are based on Danish registry data.

Rikke constructed an algorithm to identify late breast cancer recurrence with a moderate positive predictive value and high sensitivity, specificity and negative predictive value (published in Clinical Epidemiology). Using the algorithm, she found a cumulative incidence of late breast cancer recurrence ranging from 13% to 24% from year 10 to year 25 after the primary breast cancer diagnosis, depending on tumor size and lymph node involvement. The overall cumulative incidence of late recurrence was 17% 32 years after primary diagnosis (accepted at the Journal of the National Cancer Institute).

Rikke and colleagues investigated breast cancer death and all-cause mortality after late recurrence and identified prognostic factors. Furthermore, they compared survival after late recurrence with survival after early recurrence. Last, they examined the association between post-diagnostic use of statin and the risk of breast cancer recurrence up to 23 years after primary diagnosis. These results are awaiting publication in scientific journals, and thus, cannot be presented in more detail here.

Research, Academic staff, Dept Clin Epi, Dept Clin Epi, Technical / administrative staff, PhD students