Table 1.

Characteristics of Patients from NSABP Clinical Trials and the SEER Cohort

	Trials (Diagnosis 1982–1998)					SEER (Diagnosis 1989–2003)
	Node −		Node +			Node −		Node +
	N	%	N	%		N	%	N	%
Age at Diagnosis
< 50	4466	43.7	5729	54.5		27657	23.6	16199	32.3
50–64	4289	41.9	4013	38.2		41187	35.2	17633	35.2
≥ 65	1473	14.4	768	7.3		48193	41.2	16257	32.5
Race/ethnicity
White/Caucasian	8847	86.5	8971	85.4		100785	86.1	41984	83.8
Black/AA	802	7.8	930	8.8		7777	6.6	4534	9.1
Other/unknown	579	5.7	609	5.8		8475	7.2	3571	7.1
Tumor Size (cm)
≤ 2.0	6282	61.4	4370	41.6		89047	76.1	25333	50.6
2.1–4.9	3501	34.2	4910	46.7		24886	21.3	23115	46.2
≥ 5.0	444	4.3	1230	11.7		3104	2.7	1641	3.3
Lymph Nodes
Negative	10228	100.0	0	0		117037	100	0	0
1–3	0	0	6284	59.8		0		34491	69.3
4–9	0	0	3064	29.2		0		10648	21.2
≥10	0	0	1147	11.0		0		4626	9.3
Treatment
Tamoxifen	5343	52.2	5374	51.1		-	-	-	-
chemotherapy	5272	51.5	10089	96.0		-	-	-	-
Vital Status
Alive	7820	76.5	6242	59.4		93878	80.2	34105	68.1
Deceased	2408	24.5	4268	40.6		23159	19.8	15984	31.9
death cert. cause*
Breast cancer	1150	47.8	3015	70.6		6629	28.6	9656	60.4
Other cause	718	29.8	468	11.0		15623	67.4	5795	36.3
Unknown	540	22.4	785	18.4		907	3.9	533	3.3

^*percentages are of deceased cases