The Frequency of Asymptomatic Choroidal Metastasis in Patients With Disseminated Breast and Lung Cancer

Abstract

Abstract: : Purpose: To determine the frequency of visually asymptomatic choroidal metastases in patients with disseminated lung and breast carcinomas and to examine how the increase in life expectancy in these patients has changed the incidence of Choroidal metastases (CM) Methods: from January 2002 until December 2003, patients who visited either the oncology department, clinic or our internal departments and who were known to have metastatic disease, were chosen consecutively, and underwent fundoscopic examination (by retina specialist) and Ultrasound evaluation (by u/s specialist) with a different examiner for each. From the 77 cases of breast ca. 83% had metastases in one organ while 17% had more than one. From the 92 cases of lung ca. 92% had metastases in one organ while 6.5 % had two and 1.5% had three. Results: 2/92 ( 2.17%) of the patients with metastatic lung disease were found to have choroidal metastases while, none of the patients with breast carcinoma (0/77) were found to have choroidal metastases. One of the two patients had two involved organs while the other had three. The metastases were located both by fundoscopic and U/S examinations. Conclusions: The incidence of choroidal metastasis in Lung and Breast CA in our study is 2.17% and 0% correspondingly and is significantly lower than was previously reported. We suggest that the decrease was due to improved treatment. The incidence increased when more than one organ was involved with metastaic spread. Both funduscopic and US examinations demonstrated independently the disease.

Keywords: choroid • oncology • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence