Cytokeratin-19 mRNA-positive circulating tumor cells during follow-up of patients with operable breast cancer: prognostic relevance for late relapse

Table 5 Prognostic factors by multivariate analysis for disease-free and overall survival

	DFS			Overall survival
	HR	95% CI	P-value	HR	95% CI	P-value
Menopausal status Post vs Pre	1.462	0.858 to 2.492	0.163	1.365	0.794 to 2.347	0.260
Tumor status T2/T3 vs T1	2.187	1.167 to 4.098	0.015	2.135	1.141 to 3.994	0.018
Nodes N> 3 vs N0-3	1.801	1.080 to 3.003	0.024	2.150	1.109 to 4.168	0.023
CK-19 at five years FU Persistently negative Turn to negative Turn to positive Persistently positive (ref)	0.328 0.206 0.622	0.157 to 0.683 0.081 to 0.526 0.327 to 1.186	0.003 0.001 0.149 0.001	0.330 0.201 0.587	0.159 to 0.688 0.079 to 0.514 0.309 to 1.115	0.003 0.001 0.104 0.001

CK-19, cytokeratine-19; CMF, cyclophosphamide-methotraxate-fluorouracil; DFS, disease-free survival; ER, estrogen receptor; FEC, fluorouracil-epirubicin-cyclophosphamide; PR, progesteron receptor; T/EC, taxane/epirubicin-cyclophosphamide.

ISSN: 1465-542X