Clinical features and prognosis of breast cancer patients with bone metastases and skeletal-related events

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical features and prognosis of breast cancer patients with bone metastases and skeletal-related events (SREs). Methods A total of 156 patients with bone metastases from breast cancer admitted to the People’s Hospital of Zhengzhou University from January 2004 to April 2013 were collected. Eighty-five patients with SREs were treated as SREs group, while 71 patients without SREs were treated as no SREs group. The clinical data of breast cancer patients with SREs were summerized to analyze the prognosis of breast cancer patients with bone metastasis in no SREs group and SREs group. Results Among 85 patients with bone metastases from breast cancer in SREs group, the most common type of SREs was bone pain requiring radiotherapy (53 cases, 62.4%). The median interval of bone-related events was 8 months (1-54 months) in SREs group, and 64 patients (75.3%) had SREs within 1 year after diagnosis of bone metastasis. Univariate analysis of COX model showed that the interval of bone-related events was shorter in patients with bone metastasis lesions ≥ 5 and with other metastases (HR=1.698, P=0.02; HR=1.636, P=0.032). The median survival time and 5-year survival rate of breast cancer patients with bone metastasis of SREs group and no SREs group were 26 months, 18.8% and 30 months, 24.0% respectively. There was no significant difference in survival time between the two groups (P=0.261). Conclusions Patients with more than 5 bone metastatic lesions and other metastases sites have a shorter skeletal-related events free interval. The survival time of breast cancer and bone metastases patients with SREs is similar with that of patients without SREs. Key words: Breast cancer; Bone metastases; Skeletal-related events; Clinical characteristic; Progonosis