Clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer and trends in the management of breast cancer patients in Japan: Based on the Breast Cancer Registry of the Japanese Breast Cancer Society between 2004 and 2011

We conducted a study to analyze the clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer in Japan registered to the Japanese Breast Cancer Registry of the Japanese Breast Cancer Society (JBCS). Trends in the management of breast cancer patients in Japan were also analyzed.

More than 250,000 breast cancer patients were registered to the JBCS registry between 2004 and 2011. Demographic and clinicopathological factors in newly diagnosed primary breast cancer patients were registered to the JBCS through the Web-based system from affiliated institutes nationwide.

Two distinct peaks were observed, in patients in their late 40s and early 60s, in the population-adjusted age distribution of breast cancer patients. An increased rate of screen-detected breast cancer may contribute to an earlier detection of breast cancer and increased rate of non-invasive ductal carcinoma. The positive rate of either ER or PgR appears to have increased in recent years. The annual rates of patients treated with breast-conserving surgery increased until 2006, but these increases stopped in 2007 and thereafter plateaued at approximately 60 %. The annual rates of patients treated with sentinel lymph node dissection alone have steadily increased. The annual rates of patients treated with preoperative trastuzumab plus chemotherapy have also increased, as well as those treated with postoperative aromatase inhibitors. The annual rates of patients treated with postoperative anthracycline-containing regimens have decreased, whereas those treated with postoperative taxane-containing regimens have increased. The postoperative use of trastuzumab has markedly increased since 2007.

Although this study was based on the registry database, several unique clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer in Japan have been unveiled. Our results suggest that recent trends in the management of breast cancer patients in Japan were strongly followed by clinical evidence that originated from a number of clinical trials worldwide.