Breast cancer subtypes predict the preferential site of distant metastases: a SEER based study

This study aimed to access possible relationships between breast cancer subtypes and sites of distant metastasis in breast cancer.

A total of 243,896 patients, including 226,451 cases in control groups were identified. Bone metastasis was found in 8848 cases, compared with 1,000 brain metastasis cases, 3434 liver metastasis cases and 4167 lung metastasis cases. Patients with all subtypes were most prone to bone metastases, the incidence of bone metastasis in HR+/HER2+ subtype was up to 5.1 %. Further, HR-/HER2+ subtype patients had a higher probability of brain (OR = 1.978) metastasis compared to HR+/HER2- subtype patients. In addition, liver metastasis was more frequently observed in the HER2 positive subtypes compared with HER2 negative subtypes. Patients with TN primarily presented lung metastasis, but it made no difference in the probability of lung metastases of all subtypes.

Using the 2010-2013 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program(SEER) data, a retrospective, population-based cohort study to investigate tumor subtypes-specific differences in the sites of distant metastasis. Metastatic patterns information was provided for bone, brain, liver and lung. The breast cancer was classified into four subtypes: hormone receptor (HR) +/ human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) -, HR+/HER2+, HR-/HER2+ and triple negative (TN).

The pathological subtypes of breast cancer are clearly different in metastatic behavior with regard to the sites of distant metastasis, emphasizing that this knowledge may help to determine the appropriate strategy for follow-up and guide personalized medicine.