Early distant relapse in early stage triple-negative breast cancer: usefulness of FDG-PET for diagnosis of distant metastases

Triple-negative breast cancer is extremely aggressive and more likely to metastasize than other subtypes of breast cancer. Better understanding of the distinct patterns of relapse and early detection will help identify patients who need aggressive treatment. Here we report a case of early stage triple-negative breast cancer with no lymph node metastasis at the time of breast-conserving surgery in a 46-year-old woman. She developed distant metastases immediately after completing adjuvant chemotherapy following surgery, which were detected by an [18F] 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) scan. Although routine use of FDG-PET is not recommended for early stage breast cancer, FDG-PET might be useful for the early detection of distant metastasis among patients with triple-negative breast cancer.