A retrospective study on the impact of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in T1N0M0 Triple- Negative Breast Cancer based on the SEER database and a single-center data

Background: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) has been considered for the therapy of locally advanced breast cancer. However, the potential benefits of NAC for early-stage breast cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy remains a subject of debate. The purpose of our article is to clarify the effect of NAC on patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)’s survival prognosis, specifically those with T1N0M0. Methods This study collected 1319 cases of TNBC patients with the diagnose of T1N0M0 according to Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database (2016–2020) and 249 cases from The Affiliated Lihuili Hospital of Ningbo University (2015–2019). The impact of NAC on overall survival (OS) and breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) in T1N0M0 patients was assessed according to univariate and multivariate COX regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Results The findings obtained from the SEER database indicate that NAC significantly improves the OS and BCSS of TNBC patients with T1bN0M0 and T1cN0M0. However, NAC seems to have no significant impact on patients with T1aN0M0. Similarly, the data from Lihuili hospital also show that NAC enhances the OS and BCSS of patients with T1bN0M0 and T1cN0M0 but has no significant effect on those with T1aN0M0. Additionally, two databases reveal that marital status has an influence on the survival status of patients with T1N0M0. Conclusions TNBC classified as T1bN0M0 and T1cN0M0 may benefit from NAC in terms of BCSS and OS, but this is not as significant for patients with T1aN0M0. Moreover, marital status also has an impact on patients in early-stage of cancer.