Evaluation of Prognostic Factors that Affect Survival Outcomes of Breast Cancer Patients with Brain Metastases: A Single Institutional Experience

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate various prognostic factors that play a vital role in stratifying and guiding tailored treatment strategies and survival outcome in breast cancer patients with brain metastases (BM). Materials and Methods: Data regarding demography, clinical presentation, molecular subtypes, risk-stratification, treatment details, and outcomes were retrieved from medical records. All time-to-event (survival) outcomes were analyzed by Kaplan-Meir method and compared using log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate analysis of relevant prognostic factors were performed and p-values <= 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 88 patients (median age: 50 years) were included for this study. The median follow-up time of all surviving patients was similar to 20 months. During the follow-up, 82 (93.1%) patients died. The median survival of all patients was 12 months, with 1-year and 2-year overall survival (OS) rate of 51% and 22%, respectively. Based on univariate analysis, statistically significant prognostic factors for OS were molecular subtypes, number of BM, and Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS); however, number of BM and KPS emerged as independent predictors of survival based on multivariate analysis. Conclusion: We conclude that, there are other important prognostic factor, such as number of BM, which may affect the OS of these patients, in addition to variables included in the diagnosis-specific graded prognostic assessment score. Prospective studies evaluating these factors are necessary to further refine the stratification of patients, which will aid the initiation of appropriate treatment to improve the OS of patients.