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Intramedullary spinal cord metastasis presenting as the initial manifestation of breast cancer: case report and review of the literature

Spinal Cord Series and Cases volume 11, Article number: 13 (2025) Cite this article

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Abstract

Background

Intramedullary spinal cord metastasis (ISCM) is very rare. Symptoms from ISCM metastasis being the initial presentation are extremely rare.

Case presentation

We present a case of a 42-year-old woman without previous medical history who presented with complaints of progressive lower limb weakness of three weeks evolution. Neurological examination elicited a medullary syndrome, and physical examination showed a palpable mass on her right breast. A spinal MRI revealed a dorsal intramedullary tumor mass. A biopsy sample from the breast mass revealed the diagnosis of carcinoma. The diagnosis of an Intramedullary breast cancer metastasis (IMBCM) was made according to positron emission tomography. The patient received treatment with corticosteroids and radiation therapy without improvement, and she died, 3 months after the diagnosis.

Conclusions

As far as we know, this is the first reported case of IMBCM revealing a breast carcinoma. Although extremely rare, ISCM should be considered as a differential diagnosis of a spinal intramedullary lesion.

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Fig. 1: Spine MRI, Fluor-18-desoxyglucose-PET, and histological examination performed in our patient.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology and Research Laboratory LR12SP19, Habib Bourguiba University Hospital, Sfax, Tunisia

    Nadia Bouattour, Sirine Sellami, Salma Sakka & Mariem Damak

  2. Medical School of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia

    Nadia Bouattour, Sirine Sellami, Yosra Mzid, Slim Charfi, Fatma Hamza, Salma Sakka, Khaireddine Ben Mahfoudh, Amine Bahloul & Mariem Damak

  3. Radiology’s Department, Habib Bourguiba Hospital, Sfax, Tunisia

    Yosra Mzid & Khaireddine Ben Mahfoudh

  4. Department of Pathology and Research Laboratory LR18SP10, Habib Bourguiba University Hospital, Sfax, Tunisia

    Slim Charfi

  5. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Habib Bouguiba University Hospital, Sfax, Tunisia

    Fatma Hamza

  6. Department of cardiology, Hedi Chaker University Hospital, Sfax, Tunisia

    Amine Bahloul

Authors
  1. Nadia Bouattour
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  2. Sirine Sellami
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Contributions

Nadia Bouattour: Writing and revision of the manuscript. Sirine Sellami: Writing of the manuscript. Yosra Mzid : Interpretation of the spinal MRI. Slim Charfi: Interpretation of the histological examination. Fatma Hamza: Interpretation of the positron emission tomography. Salma Sakka: Reviewing of the manuscript. Khaireddine Ben Mahfoudh: Interpretation of the spinal MRI. Amine Bahloul: Reviewing of the manuscript. Mariem Damak: Reviewing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nadia Bouattour.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. Ethics committee: Not Applicable, as this is a single case report and not a clinical trial or research study, ethics committee approval was not required according to our local regulations. We obtained an informed consent for study participation in the manuscript. We obtained the patient’s consent for publication.

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Bouattour, N., Sellami, S., Mzid, Y. et al. Intramedullary spinal cord metastasis presenting as the initial manifestation of breast cancer: case report and review of the literature. Spinal Cord Ser Cases 11, 13 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-025-00708-y

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