Adherence of Long-term Breast Cancer Survivors to Follow-up Care Guidelines: a Study Based on Real-world Data from the SURBCAN Cohort

Purpose: To identify adherence to follow-up recommendations in long-term breast cancer survivors (LTBCS) of the SURBCAN cohort and to identify its determinants, using real-world data.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study using electronic health records from 2012 to 2016 of women diagnosed with incident breast cancer in Spain between 2000 and 2006 and surviving at least 5 years. Adherence to basic follow-up recommendations, adherence according to risk of recurrence, and overall adherence were calculated based on attendance at medical appointments and imaging surveillance, by year of survivorship. Logistic regression models were fitted to depict the association between adherence and its determinants.

Results: A total of 2079 LTBCS were followed up for a median of 4.97 years. Of them, 23.6% had survived ≥ 10 years at baseline. We estimated that 79.5% of LTBCS were overall adherent to at least one visit and one imaging test. Adherence to recommendations decreased over time and no differences were found according to recurrence risk. Determinants of better overall adherence were diagnosis in middle age (50-69 years old), living in a more-deprived area, having fewer years of survival, receiving primary treatment, and being alive at the end of follow-up.

Conclusion: We identified women apparently not complying with surveillance visits and tests. Special attention should be paid to the youngest and eldest women at diagnosis and to those with longer survival.