Influencing factors of recurrence after surgery among Chinese female breast cancer patients: a meta-analysis

Objective To explore influencing factors of recurrence of breast cancer after surgery among Chinese female patients and to provide evidences for decision-making for improving prognosis of the patients.Methods Literatures published between January 1st,2000 and December 31st,2013 relevant to influencing factors of recurrence of breast cancer after surgery among Chinese female patients were searched online through China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI),Wanfang Database,Chinese Biological and Medical Database (CBM),Web of Science,Pubmed,Science Direct,and BIOSIS and supplemented with manual searching.Meta-analysis on the data collected was performed with RevMan 5.2 and SAS 9.2.Results Totally 25 studies conducted among 16 471 Chinese female breast cancer patients were included;of all the patients,1 048 had recurrence after surgery of breast cancer,with a recurrence rate of 6.36%.The results of meta-analysis showed that tumor size >2 cm in diameter (odds ratioOR=2.89,95% confidence interval95%CI=1.76-4.74),neoplasm staging of greater than stage Ⅱ (OR=3.79,95%CI=3.08-4.66),primary tumor T-stage of higher than T2 (OR=3.78,95%CI=2.47-5.78),lymph node metastasis (OR=2.68,95%CI=1.67-4.31),total number of lymph node metastasis of more than 3 (OR=3.17,95%CI=2.49-4.03),and human epidermal receptor-2 (Her-2) positive (OR=2.85,95%CI=2.21-3.67) were risk factors of recurrence;whereas estrogen receptors to progesterone receptors (ER/PR) positive (OR=0.47,95%CI=0.38-0.59) and postoperative radiotherapy (OR=0.21,95%CI=0.12-0.36) were protective factors.Sensitivity analysis and publication bias assessment indicated that the results were stable and there was no publication bias.Conclusion The recurrence of breast cancer after surgery is related to tumor size,tumor staging,T-stage of primary tumor,lymph node metastasis,lymph node metastasis number,Her-2 status,ER/PR status,and postoperative radiotherapy among Chinese female breast cancer patients.