Occult breast carcinoma presenting as isolated vertebral metastasis with negative PET-CT but detected on contrast-enhanced MRI: A case report.

Ekakshi Varshney, Anjum Syed, Abhishek Gupta, Sai Prasath, Harsha Sp

Abstract readCase Reports

In one paragraph

Article in Radiology case reports, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

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1citing papers in PubMed

–field-weighted citation impact

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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1 citing paper in PubMed.

Incidental [EJNMMI research · 2026
Article

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5 · Who and what money

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5 authors.

Ekakshi VarshneyDepartment of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India.

Anjum SyedDepartment of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India.

Abhishek GuptaDepartment of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India.

Sai PrasathDepartment of Medical Oncology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India.

Harsha SpDepartment of Medical Oncology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Occult breast cancer (OBC) is a rare subtype of breast malignancy defined by histologically proven metastasis without a clinically or radiologically detectable primary tumor. We report the case of a 45-year-old woman who presented with chronic lower-back pain and was found to have isolated vertebral metastasis without axillary involvement-an uncommon initial manifestation. Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET-CT failed to identify a primary lesion, whereas contrast-enhanced breast MRI (CE-MRI) demonstrated a subtle area of architectural distortion, later confirmed as infiltrating lobular carcinoma on biopsy. This case highlights the diagnostic limitations of PET-CT in tumors with low FDG avidity, such as invasive lobular carcinoma, and underscores the superior sensitivity of CE-MRI in detecting occult breast cancers.

Indexed as

Breast neoplasmsInvasive lobular carcinomaMagnetic resonance imagingOccult breast cancerPositron-emission tomography

Identifiers

PMID41859507

DOI10.1016/j.radcr.2026.02.003

PMCPMC12996991

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