Micrometastases to bone marrow in primary breast cancer patients – A long time follow up in 1256 patients

The detection of epithelial cells in the bone marrow (BM) of primary breast cancer (BC) patients may be the missing link between the local disease and the development of secondary metastases to bone or other sites (micrometastasis. The detection of those cells was used in several studies to assess the prognosis of BC patients and may define the therapeutic setting of new therapies. In this study we compared 622 BC patients with (MUC-antibody used; group BM(+)) against 634 patients without detected epithelial cells in BM (group BM(-)) regarding their prognosis. Patients were operated at the Dept. of gynecology of…