Prognostic value of disseminated tumor cells in the bone marrow of patients with operable primary breast cancer: a long-term follow-up study.

Background: Detection of disseminated tumor cells (DTC) in primary breast cancer (BC) patients' bone marrow (BM) seems to be a surrogate marker of tumor spread and an independent prognostic factor for disease-free and overall survival.

Methods: Here we present the largest single-center cohort of patients (n = 1378) with the longest observation time (median 82.0 months).