Value of preoperative staging of breast cancer patients using computed tomography to detect asymptomatic lung and liver metastasis

Abstract

1105 Background: Preoperative clinical staging in breast cancer patients is important to determine the most appropriate treatment plans and to predict prognosis for individual patients. Identifying unexpected distant metastases in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients frequently alters initial treatment plans. Routine imaging studies to detect lung or liver metastasis is not indicated in patients with early and operable breast cancer. A recent study showed that routine use of chest radiograph and liver ultrasound does not provide much diagnostic benefit in early breast cancer patients. Methods: We aimed to investigate the value of preoperative computed tomography to detect asymptomatic liver and lung metastasis in breast cancer patients. We performed preoperative CT for 667 breast cancer patients to detect lung and liver metastasis among 1,636 primary breast cancer patients who had been diagnosed and treated between January 2006 and December 2007 at Seoul National University Hospital. Results: CT showed abnormal findings (suspicious of metastasis or indeterminate nodules) in 78 patients (10.5%). Among these, abnormal finding in 13 patients (1.7%) turned out to be true metastatic lesions. There was no CT-detected lung or liver metastasis in patients with T1 tumor and 4 metastases in patients with T2 tumor. There was no CT-detected lung or liver metastasis in patients with negative axillary lymph node metastasis. When patients were classified according to the AJCC staging, CT-detected true metastatic lesions were only present in stage III patients (13 out of 173 patients, 7.5%). The true metastatic lesions in lung or liver were all small sized nodules, ranging from 0.3cm to 1.2cm in largest diameters. In seven patients, the CT-detected metastatic lesions were less than 1cm which is in contrast with the previous studies. Conclusions: Our results demonstrated the lack of usefulness in performing routine CT exams to detect asymptomatic liver and lung metastasis in early breast cancer patients. Staging CT might be useful in stage III patients, since 13 (7.5%) patients were upstaged to stage IV by the use of CT. No significant financial relationships to disclose.