title: Importance of the development time of isolated bone metastasis in breast cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether isolated bone metastases at the time of diagnosis is a different entity than bone metastases after breast cancer surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred thirty-nine patients were examined between June 2004 and January 2007. These patients were classified into synchronous (group I) and metachronous groups (group II) depending on time to development of bone metastases. Patients and tumor characteristics, treatment, clinical progression, and survival were compared for each group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 44 patients in group I and 95 patients in group II. The median follow-up time was 36 months. The two groups showed similar results when patients, tumor characteristics, and clinical progression were compared. In the groups, the median time to progression was 14 vs 13 months (p = 0.70), and median overall survival was 47 vs 46 months (p = 0.96), respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Development time of bone metastasis has no effect on clinical progression, time to progression, and overall survival in breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Ankara Oncology Education and Research Hospital, Demetevler, Ankara, Turkey. turanlisevim@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Sevim
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Turanli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000556:secondary* / Q000628:therapy; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness / Q000473:pathology; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D016019:Survival Analysis; D013997:Time Factors