Corelation bone scintigraphy with prognostic factors breast cancer with bone metastases

The use of routine bone scintigraphy to detect bone metastases in breast cancer patients is controversial because early detection of bone metastases has not been shown to improve long-term survival. According to our hypothesis, the presence of histopathologic factors with known co-existence with bone metastases may be an indication for routine bone scintigraphy and may improve long-term survival. We also aimed to calculate the time interval between diagnosis of breast cancer via biopsy and detection of bone metastases via bone scintigraphy. The relation of time interval between diagnosis to occurrence of bone metastases with tumor types, clinical stage, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), c-erb B-2 oncoprotein, mitotic index, nuclear grade and lymphatic invasion were also investigated retrospectively. Eighty-seven patients with ages of 25 to 80 years were included in the study. All of them had bone metastases diagnosed by bone scintigraphy. Biopsy dates, tumor types, clinical stage, ER, progesterone receptor PR, c-erb B-2 oncoprotein, mitotic index, nuclear grade, lymphatic invasion and the time of first bone involvement were noted. The number of lesions detected on bone scintigraphy was also noted. The time intervals for the occurrence of bone metastases (TBM) were calculated for each patient in months. Mann Whitney U Test was used to analyze the correlation of TBM with ER, PR, c-erb B-2, and mitotic index. students? t test was used for the analyses of the correlation between TBM and lymphatic invasion. Kruskal-Wallis test was used for the analyses of the correlation between TBM, tumor types, clinical stage, mitosis and nuclear grade. Finally, the chi-square test was used to test the correlation of number of lesions detected on bone scintigraphy with histopathologic factors and clinical stage. The mean TBM was 26.4 ± 34.7 months. There was not any statistically significant relation between TBM and number of metastases with histopathologic features. The TBM for stage IV patients was significantly shorter than other clinical stages (P=0.009). We could not demonstrate any correlation of prognostic factors with bone metastases in this study. More studies in larger patient groups concerning the demonstration of any possible correlation between prognostic factors bone metastases in breast cancer patients with bone metastases are needed