Does the laterality of breast cancer affect disease outcomes on bone scan?

Abstract

Background: The incidence of breast cancer (BC) continues to rise, with the latest record being 2.08 million globally. It also remains the most common female malignancy worldwide. Increasing awareness and screening have been suggested as contributory factors. Objective: To determine the relationship between disease laterality in breast cancer and disease outcome in terms of bone metastasis. Methods:The study is a hospital-based six-year retrospective review of all breast cancer patients who had bone scans done between 2011 and 2016. Results:A total of 992 bone scans (BS) were analysed for 500 (50.4%) patients with left-sided breast cancer and 492 (49.6%) with right-sided breast cancer. While 638 bone scans were abnormal, 354 were benign and 242 (24.39%) were equivocal. There was no association between primary tumour laterality and BS outcome (p=0.544). Furthermore, Chi-Square for trend assessedthe association between patients’ age and BC laterality but yielded no significance (p = 0.67). Conclusion: The laterality of breast cancer did not affect the stage of breast cancer as shown by bone scan outcomes in this study.

Keywords

• tumour
• bone scan
• bone scintigraphy
• laterality of breast cancer
• nuclear medicine