The fate and prognostic value of occult metastatic cells in the bone marrow of patients with breast carcinoma between primary treatment and recurrence

BACKGROUND. The current study examines the fate of occult metastatic cells detected in bone marrow (BM) at primary diagnosis and evaluates whether per sistently positive findings support the prognostic influence of these cells in patients with Stage I-III (International Union Against Cancer) breast c arcinoma. METHODS. The authors analyzed BM aspirates, at the time of primary diagnosi s and after a median interval of 19 months (range, 7-67 months), from 89 pa tients who were free of recurrence. The presence of cytokeratin (CK) positi ve cells was assessed with the monoclonal anti-CK antibody A45-B/B3. Patien ts were observed prospectively for a median of 41 (range, 12-78) months aft er the first aspiration. RESULTS. At the time of primary diagnosis, 24 of 89 patients (27%) presente d with occult metastatic cells in the BM. Of the same 89 patients, 25 (28%) had a positive BM finding at the time of the second BM analysis. Among tho se patients with an initially negative BM finding, 15 patients (17%) had oc cult metastatic cells at time of the second BM aspiration, whereas 10 patie nts (11%) had a persistently positive BM finding. Patients with a persisten tly negative BM status (n = 50) had a significantly better overall survival than patients with a positive BM status at the time of the second BM aspir ation (n = 25), both by univariate analysis (P = 0.045, lag-rank) and multi variate analysis (P = 0.034, Cox regression). CONCLUSIONS. In many patients with primary breast carcinoma, minimal residu al disease can be detected by follow-up examination of the BM. This finding is prognostically relevant and provides reason to include BM monitoring in future clinical trials. Cancer 2001;92:46-53. (C) 2001 American Cancer Soc iety.