Breast cancer
affects both men and women, although the majority of patients diagnosed with breast cancer are female. Breast cancer is a cancer that originates in either the glands or ducts of the breast (often called adenocarcinoma) or the tissue of the breast (sarcoma). In its early stages, breast cancer is generally asymptomatic, although a woman may feel a lump or, in the case of inflammatory breast cancer, the skin of the breast may appear infected. Pain in the sternum does not normally accompany breast cancer, and may be a sign that the cancer has metastasized to the sternum.
Symptoms
Symptoms of breast cancer vary from person to person and depend on the stage of the cancer and the type of the cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer, which accounts for only 1 to 3 percent of breast cancers, is the most symptomatic, and may appear as a red rash or infection on the skin of the breast. Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed initially as a breast infection. For other types of breast cancers, symptoms may include a lump, skin changes or swelling in the skin of the breast. Pain in the sternum is not a normal symptom of breast cancer, unless the cancer has spread or metastasized to the sternum. Generally, metastases occurs only in advanced, or Stage IV breast cancer.
Causes of Sternum Pain
Medications and treatments, including chemotherapy and tamoxifen, can cause pain in the bones or joints. However, this bone and joint pain is usually in the hips, arms and legs, as opposed to the sternum. The most common cause of sternum pain, as mentioned above, is metastases. It is essential that you discuss sternum pain with your doctor, after your initial breast cancer diagnosis, so the proper tests can be performed and treatment can be administered.
Non-Metastatic Causes of Sternum Pain
Although chemotherapy can cause persistent bone and joint pain that lasts for up to a year or more after treatment, typically this pain presents in the lower extremities and not the sternum.
If a breast reconstruction is done, which includes implants, this breast reconstruction can cause pain in and around the bones in the rib cage. This pain may be mistaken for pain in the sternum, and is a non-metastatic cause of sternum pain as an indirect result of breast cancer treatment.
Metastases to Sternum
In a study performed at the Cancer Institute Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, 34 percent of those patients with breast cancer that metastasized to the bone had metastasis in the sternum. When the metastasis was to the sternum, the study found that the metastasis remained only in the sternum and not in other parts of the skeletal system for a longer period of time than metastasis to other skeletal sites, however this did not lengthen patient survival times.
Treating Metastatic Pain
Bone pain specific to a particular location, such as the sternum, may respond to local external beam radiation therapy or tamoxifen.
A new class of treatments, called bisphosphonates, is promising at slowing metastasis and bone destruction and increasing survival times in patients with bone metastasis. These bisphosphonates also help to maintain normal blood calcium levels.
Tags: breast cancer, breast cancer, skin breast, bone joint, bone joint pain, bone metastasis