Fig. 1.

Flowchart demonstrating data from 1027 patients with primary breast cancer that had been registered at the breast center of the LMU University Hospital between 2005 and 2015 and had been considered for inclusion in this study. From these 1027 patients, we had to exclude 98 patients because of either primary metastasis or secondary cancer diseases. From the remaining 929 breast cancer patients, 425 patients with pathological complete response (pCR) had been excluded. Further on, because of unfinished treatment due to death, loss to follow-up or continued external treatment we had to exclude 187 more patients, leaving 317 for further analysis