Importance of the development time of isolated bone metastasis in breast cancer

Background and aims To investigate whether isolated bone metastases at the time of diagnosis is a different entity than bone metastases after breast cancer surgery. Patients and methods One hundred thirty-nine patients were examined between June 2004 and January 2007. These patients were classified into synchronous (group I) and metachronous groups (group II) depending on time to development of bone metastases. Patients and tumor characteristics, treatment, clinical progression, and survival were compared for each group. Results There were 44 patients in group I and 95 patients in group II. The median follow-up time was 36 months. The two groups showed similar results when patients, tumor characteristics, and clinical progression were compared. In the groups, the median time to progression was 14 vs 13 months ( p = 0.70), and median overall survival was 47 vs 46 months ( p = 0.96), respectively. Conclusion Development time of bone metastasis has no effect on clinical progression, time to progression, and overall survival in breast cancer.