ObjectiveTo systematically review the prognostic value of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in non-metastatic breast cancer patients. MethodsWe electronically searched PubMed, EMbase, WanFang Data, CNKI and CBM for collecting cohort studies about the prognostic relevance of CTCs in the peripheral blood of stage I to Ⅲ breast cancer patients from inception to March 20th, 2014. Two reviewers independently screened studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data and assessed methodological quality. Meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 7 studies involving 1 780 patients were eligible for final analyses. The results of meta-analysis showed that, the presence of CTCs was associated with both poor DFS (RR=2.24, 95%CI 1.92 to 2.61, P < 0.000 01) and OS (RR=2.55, 95%CI 1.99 to 3.28, P < 0.000 01). The results of subgroup analysis by detection time of CTCs showed that CTCs detected before and after adjuvant chemotherapy was a statistically significant prognostic factor (P≤0.000 4). ConclusionCTCs is an adverse prognostic factor in non-metastatic breast cancer patients, which is not significantly influenced by adjuvant chemotherapy.
Objective To summarize the research progress of immunotherapy for metastatic breast cancer. Method Literatures about immunotherapy for metastatic breast cancer were reviewed by searching the literatures in domestic and foreign database. Results In recent years, immunotherapy had been initially attempted in patients with metastatic breast cancer and showed its unique value. It provided a new way to improve the therapeutic effect and prolong the survival time of patients with metastatic breast cancer. ConclusionsImmunotherapy is the most effective in triple-negative metastatic breast cancers. The immuno-oncology needs to be developed to improve the clinical benefits of immunotherapy for breast cancer.