Summary:
Central nervous system (CNS) metastasis is one of the most dreaded complications in patients with
systemic cancer. The focus of this work was to determine neurological findings in CNSmetastases from
breast cancer. In this retrospective study over a sixteen months period, 258 patients with systemic
cancer were seen on consultation and among them charts of 32 patients with breast cancer were
reviewed. 15 of the 32 patients having central nervous system metastases were assessed for the
following: age, reasons of consultant, neurological signs, length of time between primary systemic
diagnosis and neurological involvement, localization of the CNS metastasis, and other organs metastases.
The average age, and the length were 48.4 years, 22.8 months respectively. The reasons of consultation
were highly variable and included, back pain (5/15), headache (3/15), seizure (3/15). The signs were
also variable and included, hemiparesis (3/15), paraparesis (3/5), postictal state (2/15). Localization of
the metastases included brain or brain stem (8/15), spinal cord (6/15) and meninges (1/15). 10/15 patients
had other organ metastases as weel. Nearly half of the consultation in these patients were related with
CNS metastases. Most of them associated with other organs metastases.
Key words:
neurological consultation, central nervous system metastasis, breast cancer
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