Gastric metastasis of breast cancer: A single centre retrospective study

BackgroundDigestive metastasis of breast cancer are rare but when they do occur the stomach is one of the commoner sites.AimTo describe the clinical, endoscopic, pathological features and treatment.Methods35 cases of gastric metastasis were identified retrospectively between 1980 and 2008.ResultsThe location of the gastric metastasis was fundus (n = 15, 43%), antrum (n = 15, 43%) or both (n = 5, 14%). The histological subtype of primary breast cancer was invasive lobular carcinoma in 34 patients (97%). Hormonal receptors were positive in 19 out of 24 cases (79%), two out of 22 analysed were HER2 positive (9%). There were 16 (46%) patients with peritoneal carcinosis. The treatment was chemotherapy (n = 13, 37%), hormonotherapy (n = 2, 6%) or both (n = 13, 37%). The 2-year survival rate after gastric metastasis diagnosis was 53% with a median follow up of 31 months [7–84 months].ConclusionNinety-seven percent of gastric metastasis from breast cancers are derived from invasive lobular carcinoma. Seventy-nine percent of these are HER+ and comparison with the original histopathological slides of primary breast carcinoma should be performed to differentiate gastric metastasis from primary gastric carcinoma. Peritoneal carcinomatosis accompanied gastric metastasis in almost half the cases in this series and treatment was generally chemotherapy.