SynthesisPloS one2015
Worse breast cancer prognosis of BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation carriers: what's the evidence? A systematic review with meta-analysis.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effect of BRCA germline mutations on breast cancer prognosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Medicine · 2016Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Outcomes and treatment patterns in germline BRCA1/2 carriers from two matched cohort studies.JNCI cancer spectrum · 2026Article
- Translational breast cancer research : a journal focusing on translational research in breast cancer · 2026Review
- AI-Driven Variant Annotation for Precision Oncology in Breast Cancer.Clinical and translational science · 2025Article
- Impact of germline BRCA1/2 mutations on response to neoadjuvant systemic therapy and prognosis in breast cancer: a propensity score matched cohort study.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2025Article
- Clinical Behavior of Breast Cancer in YoungJournal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2025Article
- Treatment Patterns, Clinical Outcomes and Quality of Life in BRCA1/2-Associated Breast Cancer Patients: A Retrospective Analysis.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2025Article
- Survival outcomes in hormone receptor-negative breast cancer among BRCA carriers versus noncarriers in western Sweden.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2025Article
- Germline DNA Damage Repair Variants and Prognosis of Patients with High-Risk or Metastatic Prostate Cancer.Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research · 2025Article
- Early breast cancer in youngTherapeutic advances in medical oncology · 2025Review
- Article
- Subtype-Specific Survival of Young Women with Breast Cancer and Its Interaction with the Germline BRCA Status.Cancers · 2024Article
- Long-term outcomes of young, node-negative, chemotherapy-naïve, triple-negative breast cancer patients according to BRCA1 status.BMC medicine · 2024Article
- Article
- Comparing Prognosis forCancers · 2023Article
- Article
- Risk of metastasis in BRCA2 carriers diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer.Cancer medicine · 2023Article
- Efficacy of front-line treatment for hormone receptor-positive HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer with germline BRCA1/2 mutation.British journal of cancer · 2023Article
- PREDICT validity for prognosis of breast cancer patients with pathogenic BRCA1/2 variants.NPJ breast cancer · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveConflicting conclusions have been published regarding breast cancer survival of BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Here we provide an evidence-based systematic literature review.
methodsEligible publications were observational studies assessing the survival of breast cancer patients carrying a BRCA1/2 mutation compared to non-carriers or the general breast cancer population. We performed meta-analyses and best-evidence syntheses for survival outcomes taking into account study quality assessed by selection bias, misclassification bias and confounding.
resultsSixty-six relevant studies were identified. Moderate evidence for a worse unadjusted recurrence-free survival for BRCA1 mutation carriers was found. For BRCA1 and BRCA2 there was a tendency towards a worse breast cancer-specific and overall survival, however, results were heterogeneous and the evidence was judged to be indecisive. Surprisingly, only 8 studies considered adjuvant treatment as a confounder or effect modifier while only two studies took prophylactic surgery into account. Adjustment for tumour characteristics tended to shift the observed risk estimates towards a relatively more favourable survival.
conclusionsIn contrast to currently held beliefs of some oncologists, current evidence does not support worse breast cancer survival of BRCA1/2 mutation carriers in the adjuvant setting; differences if any are likely to be small. More well-designed studies are awaited.
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