OBJECTIVETo explore the prognosis of benign, borderline and malignant phyllodes tumors of the breast.

METHODSData from 246 women with phyllodes tumors of the breast treated in the Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences between January 2002 and December 2012, were collected and analyzed retrospectively. The patients were followed-up for a median of 48 months (range 1-138 months). Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard model were used to analyze the factors affecting the disease-free survival.

RESULTSAmong the 246 patients, 65 were dropped out from the follow-up. 56 patients had local recurrence, 5 patients had distant metastasis, while one case had both local recurrence and distant metastasis. The median disease-free survival time was 39 months. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that fibroadenoma history and type of primary surgery were associated to the disease-free survival of phyllodes tumors of the breast (P<0.001, P=0.043), while histological type and primary tumor size had no significant relationship with the disease-free survival (P=0.083, P=0.974). The multivariate Cox proportional hazard model showed that type of primary surgery, fibroadenoma history and histological types are all independent factors affecting the disease-free survival (P=0.009, P=0.001 and P<0.001).

CONCLUSIONPhyllodes tumors of the breast have a relatively good prognosis on the whole. Type of primary surgery, fibroadenoma history and histological type are independent factors predicting the disease-free survival of patients with phyllodes tumors of the breast.