Description of characteristics, management of care and healthcare direct costs of patients with HR+/HER2- early breast cancer in Italy: a real-world study involving administrative and pathological anatomy databases.

Healthcare administrative and pathological anatomy data were used to identify Italian patients with early breast cancer (EBC) with HR+/HER2- status at high risk of recurrence, evaluating drug utilization and other healthcare resource use in clinical practice. This retrospective analysis, based on 9.4 million of Italian National Health Service beneficiaries, included adult patients with hospitalization discharge diagnosis for EBC in 01/2015–12/2020. Those with HR+/HER2- status were selected; among them, patients that underwent removal of lymph nodes (LN) were analyzed. Of 24,137 patients with EBC and HR+/HER2- status, 3619 patients (15%) had documented LN removal. Overall, 4.7% of HR+/HER2- patients and 9.9% of patients with LN removal experienced distant relapse over a median follow-up of 33.2 months (Q1-Q3: 17.0–50.6). Local relapse occurred in approximately 9.1–9.3% of patients in each group. Among the 1,175 patients with LN removal that had available pathological anatomy data, 399 (34.0%) had pathological high-risk characteristics and 13.3% experienced distant relapse. One in ten patients with EBC who underwent LN removal experienced a relapse, highlighting the strong need to prevent early recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]