There are various factors which relate to survival in breast cancer. These include:
tumour size - the smaller the tumour the more likely a patient is to survive.
spread to axillary lymph nodes - the single best factor which predicts a person's survival is the presence or absence of cancer cells in the lymph glands. The more lymph glands which are affected, the worse is the outcome.
the tumour type.
the grade (whether it is a grade I which has a good prognosis or a grade III which has a poorer prognosis).
whether tumour cells are seen by the pathologist in lymph channels or blood vessels.
whether the tumour is slow growing or fast growing.
whether it expresses hormone receptors.
the genetic abnormalities in the cancer.
Outlook for patients with locally advanced breast cancerThe outlook is worse than for patients who present with operable breast cancer. Local recurrence of the disease after treatment is a problem even in patients who have had drug treatment, surgery and radiotherapy. Control rates of disease are however much better than they used to be when surgery was the initial treatment. The outlook is better in patients who have a good response to their initial drug treatment. In approximately 10 per cent of patients who receive chemotherapy, the drug treatment is so effective than when surgery is performed, no breast cancer cells can be identified in the breast or the lymph glands. Outlook for patients with metastatic breast cancerMetastasis is the process of further spread of the cancer within the body, away from the site at which the cancer starts. People whose cancers have already spread have a much worse outlook than those whose disease is apparently localised. There are differences in survival, depending on the site affected.