Table 1. Findings and interpretations regarding peaks of relapses after breast cancer surgery.

	Finding	Interpretation
Results of computer simulation	Early (dominant) peak composed of two previously unreported surgery-induced relapse modes at 10 months and at 30 months.	Concordant with the clinical observations.
10-month peak	20% of premenopausal node-positive patients undergo this relapse mode. It is 5:1 node-positive to node-negative and 2:1 pre- compared to postmenopausal.	Avascular micrometastases induced to vascularise and relapse appears at 10 months.
30-month peak	Together the two surgery induced relapse modes comprise 50% to 80% of relapses (increasing with tumour size and nodes positive).	Previously inactive single cells are induced to divide and then stochastically vascularise with relapse peak at 30 months.
Late shallow peak (50–200 months)	The ‘natural history’ of breast cancer.	The benefit of surgery to reduce metastases first appears at 5 years.