factors which predict long term survival in bc patients with brain mets

[Lani]

letter to editor comparing results of recently published study with those of MDAnderson

Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2007 Dec 4 [Epub ahead of print] Links
Prognostic factors in long-term breast cancer survivors with brain metastases.

Harputluoglu H, Kara A, Dizdar O, Surmeli ZG, Altundag K.
Department of Medical Oncology, Hacettepe University Institute of Oncology, Sihhiye, Ankara, 06100, Turkey, altundag66@yahoo.com.
PMID: 18058228 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]


Related Links
An overview of prognostic factors for long-term survivors of breast cancer.
[Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2007]

[Joanne S]

Lani,
This one took me a really long time to find---is this the article you were attempting to post for us?

<O:pA bc friend of mine has brain metastisis so I felt compelled to find and read this article. I read this article three times. Perhaps I am missing something. My conclusion is that everyone’s bc characteristics are different and survival times vary from just a few days to years. The last sentence in the article says, ' Any or all of these characteristics might explain their potential for prolonged survival'.
</O:p
It would be so helpful if you would:
provide your personal interpretation of the article,
explain your intention/reason for sharing the article,
why you think the info contained in the article might be personally/individually important to us HER2ers,
does the info contained in the article potentially have a profound and beneficial effect on our cancer, life, prognosis, medical decisions, treatments, and mental health?
<O:p</O:p

PMID: 18058228 - Google serarch did not match any documents; however, I found this:
Received: 13 November 2007 Accepted: 14 November 2007
Published online: 4 December 2007
To the Editor,

We read with great interest the article by Lee et al. [1] in which
they analyzed retrospectively prognostic factors that affect clinical outcome of breast cancer patients with brain metastases.

The overall median survival time was 5.6 months.

In their study, 23.1% of patients survive more than 1 year.

However, they did not analyze prognostic factors of these long-term survivors, separately.

Recent retrospective study evaluated clinical data from 420 patients who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and brain metastasis between 1994 and 2004 at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

In this study median follow-up after brain metastasis was 6 months (range 0.7–95.9 months) and the overall median survival was 6.8 months [2].

Concerning long-term survivors in this study, 82 patients (19.5%) were alive at least 18 months after diagnosis of CNS metastasis. Of these 82 patients, 25 patients (30%) were HER2 positive.

Furthermore, 18 (4.2%) were alive at least 60 months after this diagnosis.

The median age of these relatively longer surviving patients was 42 years.

Compared to an unselected series of breast cancer patients, this longer surviving population was younger and predominantly premenopausal.

Most of these patients had tumors of ductal histologic type, T stage 1 or 2, N stage 0 or 1, and M0 stage at diagnosis.

About half of these patients had ER-positive or PR-positive disease, and 73% had grade III disease.

Forty-six percent of these patients had a single CNS metastasis.

Any or all of these characteristics might explain their potential for prolonged survival.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f0r3382p3k263863/fulltext.html (http://www.springerlink.com/content/f0r3382p3k263863/fulltext.html)

[Lani]

has impacted my ability/time to post as I would wish to

I used to be able to put yellow warning signs in, to put a preface on as to whether what I was posting was probably applicable to her2 breast cancer, if it was done in cell lines only or in mice only, whether the study appeared to be well done(potential flaws with the study)

I have to back out of my system, go into another one which may potentially provide a useful link and have many other difficulties and often the link I provide still is not useful.

I don't really have the time to comment on your post--I try to take the time when I think it is important for someone to really understand an abstract, article etc.

I read about many other conditions besides her2+ breast cancer and send the information to individuals, rather than posting it.

That said, there are many fewer hassles when I provide info to individuals as they do not insist on links.

I used to waver and waver as whether to post certain articles...but of late a
group of people have posted that they like to arm up on information whether it is hopeful and uplifting or not. I still try to put into the title line if the subject is hopeful for those who avoid my posts considering them technical and sometimes scary.

I prioritize my energies, deciding what efforts produce the most good, hope, ammunition, etc. vs how much time/effort/annoyance is involved.

With trying to link, the balance is changing and I am in the process of resetting my priorities in light of the new conditions.

A post the other day from someone with brain mets whose course markedly benefited from my post on Boswellia(tumors shrunk by 40% and started her on a prolonged stable course, if I recall) encouraged me to persist despite the request for linking. I continue to reevaluate...

[fullofbeans]

Thanks Lani for posting article, yes a link is useful so thanks Joanne.

Joanne I would be grateful if you also could link info of the article you mention Lee et al and no years would also be hard to find. Interesting analysis tho, thanks.

In term of whether these posts are useful, since HER2 are at a significantly higher risk of brain mets informtion on the subject is automatically relevant in my opinion, whatever the format ( but yes with link to abstract at least).

Reading these chosen post allows me, for example, to make informed decision for myself as to whether for example I need to ask for regular monitoring ect.. in the light of recent studies.

[Joanne S]

Lani, God Bless You! I commend you for your selfless contributions---especially in aiding those in need (i.e., Boswellia) ! ! !
THANK YOU, Joanne

I, unfortunately still don't understand why you posted this 'prognostic factors that affect clinical outcome of breast cancer patients with brain metastases'. Evidently I am missing something; that is why I asked "How might the info contained in the article might be personally/individually important/beneficial?" Unfortunately, the response you gave probably took longer than if you would have just answered my question.

[Joanne S]

Hi fullofbeans,


Following are the references listed at the bottom of the article: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f0r3382p3k263863/fulltext.html (http://www.springerlink.com/content/f0r3382p3k263863/fulltext.html)

The link is below in purple---I couldn't get it to load. Perhaps you or Lani or someone else could access it and copy it here.


References

<TABLE><TBODY class=Citation><TR vAlign=top><TD>1.</TD><TD>Lee SS, Ahn JH, Kim MK, Sym SJ, Gong G, Ahn SD, Kim SB, Kim WK (2007) Brain metastases in breast cancer: prognostic factors and management. Breast Cancer Res Treat. doi:10.1007/s10549-007-9806-2 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10549-007-9806-2)
Full Text: http://www.springerlink.com/content/8225537723r90q88/fulltext.pdf (http://www.springerlink.com/content/8225537723r90q88/fulltext.pdf)
</TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>2.</TD><TD>Altundag K, Bondy ML, Mirza NQ, Kau SW, Broglio K, Hortobagyi GN, Rivera E (2007) Clinicopathologic characteristics and prognostic factors in 420 metastatic breast cancer patients with central nervous system metastasis. Cancer 2007 (in press) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>