Key Words
seizures, breast cancer, vomiting, nausea,, headache
ONCOLOGY, BRAIN METASTASES, METASTATIC BREAST CANCER, BREAST CANCER
The incidence of brain metastases (BM) from breast cancer has increased in recent decades due to improved survival rates for metastatic breast cancer (mBC) and advances in neuroimaging leading to earlier detection (According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the European Society for Medical Oncology, regular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) screening is not recommended unless patients have central nervous system (CNS)-related symptoms (most commonly: headache, nausea, vomiting, focal deficits, or seizures (Here, we describe a case in which BM of mBC were detected early in a patient who participated in a physical exercise program supervised by a qualified exercise trainer, as part of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). As a result of the close monitoring throughout the intervention, the exercise trainer detected new symptoms, which had not been noticed or reported by the patient herself or her family, and which were unlikely to have been detected by the oncologist at that point. The trainer alerted the oncologist who then acted promptly.