The current study was performed to determine the incidence of central nervous system (CNS) metastases and to examine associated disease characteristics in a group of patients with locally advanced breast carcinoma (LABC) or inflammatory breast carcinoma (IBC) treated at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX).

Seven hundred sixty-eight patients treated with multimodality therapy between 1982 and 2000 in any of 6 neoadjuvant trials were eligible for the current study. Five hundred ninety-two patients (77%) had LABC, and 176 (23%) had IBC. CNS disease was defined as the presence of brain metastases or leptomeningeal disease. Time to detection of CNS disease and overall survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier product-limit method, and differences were evaluated using log-rank tests.

The median patient age was 48 years. Most tumors were classified as T4 lesions (58%) and exhibited lymph node involvement (78%). Fifty-one percent of all tumors had positive hormone receptor status. At a median follow-up duration of 9.5 years, 61 patients (8%) had developed CNS metastases, with the CNS representing the first site of recurrence for 38 of these 61 (63%). Characteristics associated with the development of CNS metastases over time included negative hormone receptor status (P = 0.03), Grade 3 disease (P = 0.01), and larger tumor size (P = 0.02). The median time to detection of CNS metastases was 2.3 years. Ten patients (16%) remained alive after treatment for CNS metastases. The median survival from the time of diagnosis of CNS metastases was 8 months.

CNS metastases from breast carcinoma were relatively uncommon and were strongly associated with more aggressive clinical presentation. Survival from the time of diagnosis of such metastases generally was short.