Chemotherapy ups risk of 1-year hospitalization in TNBC

Elderly patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) are more likely to undergo chemotherapy if they had been diagnosed at a more advanced stage, a recent study has found. In turn, receiving chemotherapy seems to aggravate their risk of being hospitalized within a year of diagnosis.

The researchers conducted a registry-based cohort study including 413 TNBC patients. Less than half of the participants (40.7 percent; n=168) were scheduled for chemotherapy.

Ultimately, 30.0 percent (n=123) of the patients needed to be hospitalized at least once within a year of cancer diagnosis.

The proportion of patients that were eventually hospitalized was higher in the chemotherapy-treated subgroup (36.3 percent vs 25.7 percent). Over half of the admissions in the chemotherapy group were due to related toxicities. Multivariate analysis revealed that chemotherapy use was a significant predictor of hospitalization, increasing its odds by more than twice (odds ratio [OR], 2.35, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.30–4.26).

The researchers also sought to identify predictors of chemotherapy. They found that women who were diagnosed with stage II (OR, 3.29, 95 percent CI, 1.75–6.16) or III (OR, 3.82, 95 percent CI, 1.31–11.51) TNBC were significantly more likely to undergo therapy relative to those with stage I disease.

On the other hand, a more advanced age at diagnosis (OR per additional year, 0.74, 95 percent CI, 0.69–0.80; p<0.001) and having 1 (OR, 0.34, 95 percent CI, 0.15–0.80) or ≥3 (OR, 0.14, 95 percent CI, 0.03–0.69; p=0.016) comorbidities at baseline were significant deterrents against chemotherapy.

“[O]ur study highlights the need to individualize treatment decisions on chemotherapy use in older patients with TNBC by taking into account several aspects including the increased risk for hospitalization due to chemotherapy,” the researchers said.

“Future studies should focus on classifying TNBC based on molecular subtyping and investigating the potential role of different treatment strategies in the light of molecular background and patients´ functional status,” they added.