Lymph Node Ratio Predicts Long-Term Survival in Lymph Node-Positive Breast Cancer

Abstract

Objective: In this study, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of axillary lymph node ratio (LNR) for disease-free survival (DFS) in node positivebreast cancer (BC) patients with long term follow-up.Materials and Methods: A total of 179 stage II to III female BC patients, who were followed between December 2001 and January 2019 at the departmentof medical oncology, were included in this study. Patients were classified into 3 groups based on the LNR as follows; LNR0.65. SPSS 22 for windows was used for statistical analysis.Results: The median age was 49 (range, 24-83) years. The numbers of patients with stage II and stage III disease were 81 (45.3%) and 98 (54.7%), respectively.The median number of lymph node (LN) resected and positive LN were 15 (range, 3-48) and 3 (range, 1-29), respectively. There were 90 patients(50.3%) with LNR 0.65. The median disease-free survival (DFS) was not reached inpatients with LNR 0.65 (p0.65 (HR, 28.99), and HER-2negativity (HR, 4.64) were the factors associated with DFS (p