Breast cancer bone metastasis

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Assistant Editor(s)-In-Chief: Jack Khouri

Overview

Bone is the most common site of breast cancer distant spread. Bone metastases due to breast cancer cause major morbidity, decrease survival and reduce quality of life of many patients. Cancer influence on the skeleton results in two main negative consequences: pain and Skeletal-Related events (sre), defined as any of the following:

• pathologic fracture,
• a requirement for surgical intervention and palliative radiotherapy to bone lesions,
• spinal cord compression,
• hypercalcemia of malignancy.