Breast cancer recurrence risk can remain for 10 to 32 years

During the past several decades, the combination of improved treatment, increased detection of early disease, population growth, and population aging has led to a growing number of long-term breast cancer survivors. Although late recurrence in survivors of nonmetastatic female breast cancer has been documented in some small studies and case series, more current and detailed information on this phenomenon is needed for optimal follow-up care of these women. A new study from Denmark, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (doi:10.1093/jnci/djab202), confirms an increasing body of literature showing BCR occurring more than 10 years after diagnosis. More importantly, the new study is the first to document an elevated risk of BCR persisting more than 25 years after primary surgery, and it also reports on demographic and clinical factors associated with the risk of BCR.