A prolonged course of cyclophosphamide as an adjunct to mastectomy in the primary treatment of breast carcinoma

Abstract

Cyclophosphamide given after mastectomy for 4–6 months to a consecutive series of patients seen in one surgical practice in the years 1964 and 1965 significantly improved the 10-year survival rate of the treated patients as compared with the patients seen consecutively in the same surgical practice in the years 1957–63. Staging showed that the improvement was due to a significant increase in the survival rate in patients with histologically negative axillary nodes (P < 0·01). There was no significant difference in survival in the node positive or advanced disease groups.