Clinical Outcome of Neoplastic Meningitis Associated with Breast Cancer

Background  Neoplastic meningitis (NM) is considered as a terminal event with poor prognosis. Its impact in clinical oncology is growing. Objective  To analyze the clinical outcome of patients with carcinoma breast diagnosed with NM. Materials and Methods  This study was an observational study in breast cancer patients diagnosed with NM. Patients with typical clinical symptoms and signs with either presence of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cytology positive for neoplastic cells or typical radiological features of leptomeningeal involvement in the presence of neurological symptoms or signs were taken as leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) or NM. The estimation of survival was done by Kaplan-Meier method. Results  Out of 1,200 patients diagnosed with carcinoma breast during the study period, 15 developed NM. The median age of study population was 51 (range: 44-55) years. Most common presentations were headache (47%), vomiting (47%), diplopia (20%), seizure (20%), and cerebellar signs (7%). Seven (46%) patients were hormone receptor positive, four (30%) were HER2 (Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) positive and seven (46%) were triple-negative breast cancer. Median time to develop LM from the time of diagnosis of breast cancer was 6 (range: 3-8) months. Nine patients (90%) had features of NM in CSF cytology. Thirteen patients received palliative whole brain radiotherapy (20 Gy in five fractions). Nine out of 12 patients received single-agent Capecitabine as first-line chemotherapy after palliative radiation therapy (RT). Intrathecal methotrexate was given for seven patients. The median overall survival was 3 (range: 0.5-4) months. Conclusion  LM is a very aggressive metastatic disease with poor outcome. There is an unmet need for proper guidelines and an overwhelming necessity for a better focus on research for new modalities of disease in this scenario.