J Breast Cancer.  2007 Jun;10(2):101-106. 10.4048/jbc.2007.10.2.101.

The Clinical Characteristics and Predictive Factors of Stage IV Breast Cancer at the Initial Presentation: A Review of a Single Institute's Data

• Kim EY
• Lee S
• Bae TS
• Kim SW
• Kwon Y
• Kim EA
• Ro J
• Lee ES

• KMID: 1745049
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4048/jbc.2007.10.2.101

Abstract

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to evaluate stage IV breast cancer at the initial presentation by the review of a single institute' data. We also tried to figure out the factors to predict stage IV breast cancer.
METHODS
We reviewed the prospectively collected database of 1,424 consecutive patients with primary breast cancer at the National Cancer Center in Korea from October 2000 to January 2005.
RESULTS
The proportion of stage IV breast cancer was 2.7% (38/1,424). The median tumor size of the stage IV patients was 4.1 cm. The most common metastatic site was bone (47.4%) followed by lung (44.7%) and liver (36.8%). Metastases were found in 0.9% (6/672) of the T1 tumors, 2.4% (13/535) of the T2 tumors, 8.3% (4/48) of the T3 tumors, and 27.1% (13/48) of the T4 tumors (p<0.001). On multivariate analysis, the statistically significant predictors of distant metastasis were tumor size (> or =2 cm) (p=0.026), positive lymph node status (p<0.001), alkaline phosphatase (>104 IU/L) (p=0.013), aspartate transferase (>40 IU/L) (p=0.003) and CA15-3 (>32 U/mL) (p=0.025).
CONCLUSION
Our study showed that the factors to predict distant metastasis of breast cancer were large size of tumor, positive lymph node status, elevated alkaline phosphatase, aspartate transferase and CA15-3. Therefore breast cancer patients with those clinical characteristics should be carefully evaluated to detect distant metastasis.

Keyword

Breast cancer; Clinical characteristics; Metastasis; Predictive factor

MeSH Terms

Alkaline Phosphatase
Aspartic Acid
Breast Neoplasms*
Breast*
Humans
Korea
Liver
Lung
Lymph Nodes
Multivariate Analysis
Neoplasm Metastasis
Prospective Studies
Transferases
Alkaline Phosphatase
Aspartic Acid
Transferases

Figure

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  Fig 1 Survival curves of 38 patients with stage IV breast cancer.

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  Fig 2 Survival time of patients with bone metastasis only versus other organ metastases.

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