Background: Endocrine therapy is the preferred treatment for patients with hormone receptor -positive metastatic breast cancer (MBC). While visceral metastasis is a negative prognostic factor, few studies have distinguished between the prognoses of patients with metastases at different visceral sites.
Patients and methods: In total, 398 patients receiving fulvestrant 500 mg at a single center over a 6-year period were analyzed. Logistic regression models were used to identify the prognostic factors associated with progression-free survival (PFS). Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare the PFS of patients with lung and liver metastases.
Results: Baseline visceral metastases were present in 233 patients, including 138 with lungw/o liver metastases (lung metastases without liver involvement), 51 with liverw/o lung metastases (liver metastases without lung involvement) and 41 with lung and liver metastases. The median PFS was 6.8 months (5.6 and 9.2 months for visceral and nonvisceral metastases, respectively, P = .028). PFS was longer in patients with lungw/o liver metastases than in those with liverw/o lung metastases or lung and liver metastases (9.6, 3.7 and 3.2 months, respectively, P < .001; liverw/o lung vs. lungw/o liver hazard ratio (HR) 1.70; lung and liver vs. lungw/o liver HR 2.85). Patients with liver metastases experienced significantly worse PFS than those without liver involvement (3.7 vs. 9.2 months, P < .001). PFS benefits were observed in patients with longer disease-free intervals, no liver metastases, and no previous chemotherapy.
Conclusion: Fulvestrant treatment benefited patients with lungw/o liver or nonvisceral metastases. When treating hormone receptor-positive/HER2-negative MBC patients with endocrine therapy, it is important to differentiate patients with lung metastases from those with liver metastases.
Keywords: hormone therapy; metastatic breast cancer; prognosis; visceral metastases.
© 2019 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.