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BACKGROUND: In 1988 the National Cancer Institute issued a Clinical Alert that has been widely interpreted as recommending that all women with node-negative breast cancer receive adjuvant chemotherapy. Acceptance of this recommendation is controversial, since many women who would not have a recurrence would be treated. METHODS: Using a decision-analysis model, we studied the cost effectiveness of chemotherapy in cohorts of 45-year-old and 60-year-old women with node-negative breast cancer by calculating life expectancy as adjusted for quality of life. The analysis evaluated different scenarios of the benefit of therapy: improved disease-free survival for five years, with a lesser effect on overall survival (base line) ; a lifelong benefit from chemotherapy; and a benefit in disease-free survival with no change in overall survival by year 10. The base-line analysis assumed a 30 percent reduction in the relative risk of recurrence for five years after treatment. RESULTS: For the 45-year-old woman, the base-line analysis found an average lifetime benefit from chemotherapy of 5. 1 quality-months at a cost of 15, 400 per quality-year. The 60-year-old women gained 4. 0 quality-months at a cost of 18, 800 per quality-year. Under the more and less optimistic scenarios, the benefit of chemotherapy varied from 1. 4 to 14. 0 quality-months for both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Chemotherapy substantially increases the quality-adjusted life expectancy of an average woman at a cost comparable to that of other widely accepted therapies. This benefit decreases markedly if the changes in long-term survival are less than in disease-free survival. Given its uncertain duration, the benefit may be too small for many women to choose chemotherapy. Selective use of chemotherapy to maximize the benefit to individual patients may be possible with refinements in risk stratification and explicit assessment of the patients' risk preferences.
Hillner et al. (Thu,) studied this question.