Song Y, et al. - Given the link of breast cancer subtypes with distinct metastatic patterns, researchers investigated if there exists an independent link of germline BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation status with central nervous system (CNS) relapse, controlling for tumor subtype. They used 2 institutional registries to select patients diagnosed with a first locoregional recurrence or metastasis and treated at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The final sample comprised 30 BRCA1 mutation carriers, 32 BRCA2 mutation carriers, and 270 noncarriers. They found that women with germline BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations who had metastatic breast cancer often suffered CNS involvement. On controlling for breast cancer subtype, a significantly higher frequency of CNS metastasis was observed in BRCA2 mutation carriers vs noncarriers. The factors that were related to the risk for mortality were BRCA2 mutation, triple-negative subtype, and the involvement of CNS and other non-CNS distant sites at presentation of recurrent breast cancer.