Patterns of disease spread in metastatic breast carcinoma: influence of estrogen and progesterone receptor status.

Abstract

There are two major patterns of disease spread in metastatic breast carcinoma, excluding patients with extensive diffuse metastases. Patients with ER+/PR+ tumors tend to develop osseous but not brain metastases. Patients with ER-/PR- tumors tend to develop brain but not osseous metastases. Appreciation of these distributions can aid the radiologist in detecting metastatic lesions, and will help the clinician to estimate the likelihood of metastases to various organ systems, as well as to potentially target therapy.