Key clinical point: Detection of breast cancer (BC) by screening vs clinical or other non-screening procedures led to significantly improved disease-free interval outcomes.
Major finding: After correcting for lead time bias, the 10-year disease-free interval was improved significantly in women with screen-detected vs clinically-detected cancer (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 0.77; 95% CI 0.68-0.87), with similar improvements observed in 5-year disease-free interval in women with screen-detected vs non-screen-related cancer (aHR 0.76; 95% CI 0.66-0.88).
Study details: Findings are from an analysis of two cohorts including 6215 and 15,176 women with invasive, non-metastatic BC who underwent surgery and were followed for 10 and 5 years, respectively, of which 55.8% of women in either of the cohorts had a screen-detected cancer.
Disclosures: This study did not declare any specific funding. S Siesling declared receiving support and serving as an advisor for various sources. The other authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: de Munck L et al. Method of primary breast cancer detection and the disease-free interval, adjusting for lead time. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2023 (Nov 3). doi: 10.1093/jnci/djad230