BACKGROUND: Patients with primary breast cancer following primary ovarian cancer do not comprise a large clinical entity, and reports of the survival outcomes of this cohort are rare. The purpose of this retrospective population-based research was to investigate the survival outcomes of patients with primary breast cancer after primary ovarian cancer.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cohort of patients diagnosed with primary breast cancer following primary ovarian cancer between 1973 and 2014 was drawn from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. Cox proportional hazards survival regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier were applied to calculate overall survival (OS), cancer-specific survival (CSS), and independent predictors of CSS.

RESULTS: A total of 1455 patients with primary breast cancer following primary ovarian cancer were identified. The 5-year and 10-year OS rates for the entire cohort were 81.7% and 67.4%, respectively. The 5-year and 10-year CSS rates were 84.2% and 74.3% for ovarian cancer, and 76.0% and 67.8% for breast cancer, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that independent predictors of ovarian cancer CSS include age, cancer stage, diagnosis time, and histological subtype.

CONCLUSIONS: Patients diagnosed with breast cancer following ovarian cancer have better survival rates. Patients age, ovarian cancer stage, ovarian cancer histological type, and time of diagnose affect the survival rate.

Keywords: Ovarian Neoplasms, SEER Program, Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms, Aged, 80 and over, Breast Neoplasms, Multivariate Analysis, Survival Rate