Key clinical point: The possibility of cancer-related or pathologic vertebral fracture should be considered in women with invasive breast cancer who received endocrine therapy, particularly those with, advanced stage cancer history where every 1 in 3 incident vetrtebral fractures was a pathologic fracture.
.Major finding: Overall, 21.2% of vertebral fractures were pathologic with the chances of vertebral fractures being pathologic higher in patients with stage 3-4 vs initial stage 1 and 2 breast cancer (41.2% vs 17.2%; P < .05).
Study details: Findings are from a cohort study including 5010 women with newly-diagnosed invasive breast cancer who received endocrine therapy and were followed up from invasive breast cancer diagnosis to 10 years or until September 30, 2015, for incident bone fracture.
Disclosures: This study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and the Research Program on Genes, Environment and Health of Kaiser Permanente Northern California. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Lo JC et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2021 Nov 17. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.33861.