Da Cunha T, Restrepo D, Abi-Saleh S, Dharan M. Breast cancer metastasizing to the upper gastrointestinal tract (the esophagus and the stomach): A comprehensive review of the literature. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2023; 15(8): 1332-1341 [PMID: 37663940 DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i8.1332]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Murali Dharan, AGAF, FASGE, MRCP, Assistant Professor, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Connecticut Health Center, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, CT 06030, United States. dharan@uchc.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2023; 15(8): 1332-1341 Published online Aug 15, 2023. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i8.1332
Breast cancer metastasizing to the upper gastrointestinal tract (the esophagus and the stomach): A comprehensive review of the literature
Teresa Da Cunha, David Restrepo, Simon Abi-Saleh, Murali Dharan
Teresa Da Cunha, Murali Dharan, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT 06030, United States
David Restrepo, Simon Abi-Saleh, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT 06030, United States
Author contributions: Da Cunha T proposed concept for review, collected data, wrote and revised the manuscript with critical revisions; Restrepo D and Abi-Saleh S collected data, helped write manuscript; Dharan M edited the article, critical revision of the article, and final approval.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Murali Dharan, AGAF, FASGE, MRCP, Assistant Professor, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Connecticut Health Center, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, CT 06030, United States. dharan@uchc.edu
Received: March 14, 2023 Peer-review started: March 14, 2023 First decision: May 16, 2023 Revised: June 1, 2023 Accepted: July 5, 2023 Article in press: July 5, 2023 Published online: August 15, 2023
Abstract
Breast cancer can infrequently metastasize to the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract but the exact incidence is not well established-there is considerable variation between incidence reported from clinical studies and incidence noted in autopsy series. Clinical presentation can be very non-specific and often mimics primary gastrointestinal conditions. Endoscopy alone may not be sufficient to make a diagnosis and misdiagnosis is also common. A high degree of awareness and clinical suspicion is required to establish metastases to the upper GI tract. We undertook a comprehensive review of the available literature on breast cancer metastases to the esophagus and stomach including the clinical symptoms and presentation, endoscopic features, additional diagnostic imaging modalities, treatment and outcomes.
Core Tip: Diagnosis if breast cancer metastasizing to the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract requires a high index of suspicion and muti-modal approach to establish the diagnosis. GI symptoms are often non-specific and endoscopic findings can be subtle. We performed a comprehensive review of the available literature on this topic.
