Fig. 5

Distant metastasis dynamics following surgery for IBTR (t = 0 at IBTR) in patients with axillary node positive (left) or negative (right). The analysis was performed for all patients and, moreover, by time from primary tumour removal to surgery for IBTR. While nodal status affects the risk level, which is higher for node-positive patients, the time to surgery for IBTR is still influential on the first peak height if it is less than about 3 years. Y-axis reports hazard rates for DM, i.e. the conditional probability of manifesting DM during an interval of 6 months, given that the patient is clinically DM free at the beginning of the interval. X-axis units are months between primary tumour removal and the second surgical manoeuvre