Signs Your Breast Cancer Has Spread to Bones

When breast cancer metastasizes or spreads beyond the breast, the bones are a common site affected after the lungs and liver. Detecting bone metastases early is important for timely treatment and management of symptoms. Let’s examine the signs that warrant further evaluation.

Signs Your Breast Cancer Has Spread to Bones

Bone pain: The most frequent symptom is a dull, aching and/or constant bone pain that does not go away with painkillers. It may be worse at night.
Tenderness: Areas around the affected bone site feel swollen and sensitive when touched.
Back pain: Pain in the spine, pelvis or other weight-bearing bones that increases with movement.
Fatigue: Cancer-related pain and bone loss sap energy levels.
Fever: Sign of infection from bone weakening.
Bone fractures: Unusual spontaneous bone breaks or fractures with minor trauma.
Weight loss: Cancer burdens the body and bone loss impacts nutrition.
Limping or neurological symptoms: Due to spinal cord compression in vertebrae metastases.

How do I know if my breast cancer has spread to my bones?

A thorough physical exam and medical history help identify possible secondary tumors in bones. Changes in bone density appear first on imaging scans before symptoms emerge. Suspicions are confirmed through:

Bone scintigraphy/bone scan: Use of radiotracers injected Intravenously to detect active bone changes.
MRI/CT scans: Precisely locate bone lesions and possibility of other organ involvement.
X-rays: Possible osteolytic or osteoblastic lesions appear as lytic or sclerotic lesions.
Biopsy: Of affected bone confirms cancer cell presence.
Blood tests: Alkaline phosphatase may indicate bone formation in response to damage.
Prompt evaluation rules out or diagnoses bone metastasis for timely risk reduction or palliative therapies.

Signs Your Breast Cancer Has Spread to Bones

How long can you live when breast cancer spreads to bones?

Sadly, bone metastases indicate advanced disease with poorer prognosis versus other spread sites like lung or liver. Average survival after diagnosis ranges 12-24 months depending on various prognostic factors:

Number and extent of bone sites involved
Other organ spread
Response to initial treatments
Development of visceral crisis from marrow failure

With proper multidisciplinary care, some women saw survival beyond 5 years even after bone spread. Ongoing research improves survival statistics.

What type of breast cancer is most likely to metastasize to bone?

Receptor-positive breast cancers have a greater tendency to spread to bones versus receptor-negative types. Specifically:

ER+ (estrogen receptor positive) breast cancer spreads to bone in 60-65% cases at autopsy.
HER2+ (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive) breast cancer also shows high bone tropism in over 50% metastatic cases.

Research elucidates factors mobilizing cancer cells’ bone homing behavior especially for luminal A/B molecular subtypes and HER2 cancers. Aggressive cancer types remain unpredictable for destinations.

In conclusion, secondary bone cancers significantly impact quality of life. However, available pain management and anti-tumor therapies today offer women better outcomes than in past. Periodic follow-ups and promptly investigating new symptoms aid earlier detection and optimized supportive survivorship care.