ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Surgical Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1640067
Clinical characteristics and prognosis of breast cancer patients with ovarian metastases
Provisionally accepted
- Xinjiang Medical University, Ürümqi, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: This study aims to investigate the clinical characteristics, overall survival (OS), and prognostic factors associated with breast cancer patients who have ovarian metastasis (OM). Materials & Methods: This retrospective single-center study analyzed 41 breast cancer patients with pathologically confirmed OM who underwent bilateral oophorectomy between 2011 and 2022. Data on clinical-pathological characteristics, molecular subtypes, detection methods, and survival were collected. The survival times were analyzed using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Prognostic factors were assessed through Cox regression models. Results: The cohort consisted of 33 (80.5%) invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and 8 (19.5%) invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) cases. Most patients (87.8%) were hormone receptor-positive. Patients with ILC were significantly older at initial diagnosis than IDC patients (median 45 vs. 37 years, P = 0.014). OM was detected earlier in IDC, often incidentally during ablation surgery (54.5% vs. 12.5% for ILC, P = 0.032), whereas ILC patients typically presented with symptoms. For the entire cohort, the median OS was 85.0 months, while the median OS after OM was 28 months. Notably, patients with ILC exhibited a significantly shorter OS after OM (11.5 months) compared to those with IDC (30 months; P = 0.01). Furthermore, the interval from the initial diagnosis of breast cancer to the emergence of OM was significantly associated with the OS of these patients (P < 0.05), serving as an independent prognostic indicator. Conclusions: OM, which may not exhibit overt clinical manifestations in the early stage, significantly affects the survival of BC patients. The ILC histological type is associated with a particularly unfavorable post-OM prognosis, and the interval from initial diagnosis to OM is a key prognostic indicator. These findings may guide clinical management in these patients.
Keywords: breast cancer, Ovarian metastasis, Invasive lobular carcinoma, invasiveductal carcinoma, OS after OM
Received: 04 Jun 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gao, Li, Ma, Zhao, Li, Liu, Li and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bing Zhao, Xinjiang Medical University, Ürümqi, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.