HISTORY OF BRAIN AND EPIDURAL METASTASES FROM BREAST-CANCER IN RELATION WITH THE DISEASE EVOLUTION OUTSIDE THE CENTRAL-NERVOUS-SYSTEM

We reviewed 89 breast cancer patients with brain or epidural metastase s in order to see whether a parallelism could be found between disease evolution inside and outside the central nervous system. One-fifth of the patients with brain metastases did not have any other site of rel apse before neurological complication. Among the 38 patients who devel oped brain metastases and had a prior history of relapse outside the b rain, 12 had control of distant extracranial sites while disease was p rogressing at these sites in 26 of them. In the epidural metastases gr oup, all patients but 4 had progressive disease elsewhere when neurolo gical complication appeared.