“Locoregional endpoints in breast cancer research: better, faster & stronger results”

Keywords: breast cancer, outcome measures

This dissertation provides new insights into the outcome measures used in breast cancer research. Results are often expressed in terms of five-year survival rates or five-year local recurrence rates. Although it may seem obvious that researchers use these terms in an identical manner, it is shown that many different definitions are in use. As a result, we are comparing apples and oranges. The first part of this dissertation presents a first step towards uniform definitions of outcome measures, allowing the comparison of results to become more accurate. The second part of this dissertation focusses on different types of breast cancer based on, for instance, hormone sensitivity and shows that they are associated with different recurrence rates and different recurrence intervals. These differences may have an impact on follow-up care.