TNM CLINICAL STAGE CLASSIFICATION OF BREAST CANCER

During the years 1949 to 1959, 627 patients with breast cancer were treated as in‐patients in the Robert Rössle Clinic. The 5‐year survival rates are available for all of them and the 10‐year survival rates for 475. Careful recording of the clinical findings prior to therapy made it possible to classify the patients into TNM groups respectively according to the UICC Committee's recommendations. T groups 1 and 2 are sufficiently homogeneous but groups T3 and T4 apparently are not. Not all criteria suggested for classification are suitably chosen. The TNM classification can be used clinically but its advantages are mostly lost when the TNM groups are combined into clinical stages. Stage III, in particular, comprises too many TNM groups differing too much from each other. Some proposals are made for the further development of the TNM classification. Copyright © 1969 Wiley‐Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company