THE EFFECT OF ORAL-CONTRACEPTIVE USE ON THE PROGNOSIS OF NODE-POSITIVE BREAST-CANCER PATIENTS

The effect of oral contraceptive (OC) use as a risk factor for breast cancer was recently assessed in a large meta-analysis, but currently a vailable data on the prognostic effect are still insufficient. We inve stigated the relationship between OC use and standard prognostic facto rs and the effect of OC use on recurrence-free survival (RFS) and over all survival (OS) in 422 premenopausal pT1a-3aN + M0 patients from two trials of the German Breast Cancer Study Group (GBSG). 137 patients ( 32.5%) were OC users. They were younger on average (mean age 41.5 year s versus 45 years for non-OC users) and the percentage of patients wit h smaller tumours was higher in the group of OC users. Based on 163 ev ents for RFS and 103 events for OS, no significant effect of OC use on RFS and OS could be demonstrated in univariate and multivariate analy ses. In our study of node positive breast cancer cases, OC users were younger and had smaller tumours. This may be an effect of earlier dete ction of breast cancer, but OC users did not have a better prognosis, both before and after adjustment for tumour size and other prognostic factors. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.