Patient and Tumor Characteristics in Whole Population and in EC-D and SIM Groups
| Variable | Whole population | EC-D group | SIM group | P |
| Patients (n) | 78 (100) | 23 (29) | 55 (71) | |
| Median age (y) | 51 (27–78) | 55 (38–78) | 49 (27–71) | 0.21 |
| Median tumor size (mm) | 50 (18–170) | 50 (22–160) | 45 (18–170) | 0.46 |
| Histology (n) | 0.15 | |||
| Invasive ductal carcinoma | 73 (94) | 20 (87) | 53 (96) | |
| Metaplastic | 5 (6) | 3 (13) | 2 (4) | |
| SBR grade (n) | 0.039* | |||
| 2 | 8 (10) | 5 (23) | 3 (5) | |
| 3 | 69 (90) | 17 (77) | 52 (95) | |
| Tumor classification† (n) | 0.93 | |||
| T1 | 1 (1) | 0 (0) | 1 (2) | |
| T2 | 36 (46) | 10 (43) | 26 (47) | |
| T3 | 22 (28) | 7 (30) | 15 (27) | |
| T4 | 19 (24) | 6 (26) | 13 (24) | |
| Lymph node classification† (n) | 0.57 | |||
| N0 | 32 (41) | 11 (48) | 21 (38) | |
| N1 | 27 (35) | 6 (26) | 21 (38) | |
| N2 | 15 (19) | 4 (17) | 11 (20) | |
| N3 | 4 (5) | 2 (9) | 2 (4) | |
| AJCC stage† (n) | 0.83 | |||
| IIA | 21 (27) | 7 (30) | 14 (25) | |
| IIB | 18 (23) | 4 (17) | 14 (25) | |
| IIIA | 18 (23) | 5 (22) | 13 (24) | |
| IIIB | 17 (22) | 5 (22) | 12 (22) | |
| IIIC | 4 (5) | 2 (9) | 2 (4) | |
| Type of surgery (n) | 0.62 | |||
| Breast-conserving surgery | 34 (44) | 9 (39) | 25 (46) | |
| Mastectomy | 43 (56) | 14 (61) | 29 (54) | |
| Pathologic response (n) | 0.078 | |||
| Non-pCR | 49 (63) | 18 (78) | 31 (56) | |
| pCR | 29 (37) | 5 (22) | 24 (44) |