Incidence of distal bone metastases in patients treated for palliative radiotherapy and associations with primary tumour types

This study assesses the incidence of distal bone metastases in palliative radiotherapy (RT) patients.

All courses of RT for bone metastases from 2007-2011 for patient living in British Columbia (BC) were identified in a provincial RT programme.

Treated bone metastases (BoM) were categorized as distal if the BoM was located within or distal to the elbow or knee. Patients were grouped by primary tumour site as breast, lung, prostate gastrointestinal, haematological, melanoma, and other. The incidence of distal bone metastases and associations with primary tumour types were determined.

From 2007 to 2011, 8008 patients were treated with 16,277 courses of RT, of which 425 (3%) were courses of RT for distal BoM. The incidence of distal BoM in decreasing order by primary tumour type was melanoma (5%), haematological (3%), lung (2%), other (2%), prostate (2%), breast (1%) and gastrointestinal (1%). Distal BoM where more commonly identified in the lower extremity (87%, p<0. 001). Single fraction RT was used more commonly for distal vs non-distal BoM (66% vs. 49%; p<0. 001).

The incidence of distal BoM among patients treated with palliative RT was 3% and most commonly identified in patients with melanoma and haematological malignancies.

Journal of bone oncology. 2015 Oct 29*** epublish ***

Mark Barnes, Manpreet S Tiwana, Andrew Kiraly, Mitch Hutchison, Robert A Olson

BC Cancer Agency-Centre for the North, 1215 Lethbridge Street, Prince George, BC, Canada V2M7E9. , BC Cancer Agency-Centre for the North, 1215 Lethbridge Street, Prince George, BC, Canada V2M7E9; University of Northern BC 333 University way, Prince George, BC, Canada V2N4Z9. , University of Northern BC 333 University way, Prince George, BC, Canada V2N4Z9. , BC Cancer Agency-Centre for the North, 1215 Lethbridge Street, Prince George, BC, Canada V2M7E9. , BC Cancer Agency-Centre for the North, 1215 Lethbridge Street, Prince George, BC, Canada V2M7E9; University of Northern BC 333 University way, Prince George, BC, Canada V2N4Z9; University of British Columbia Radiation Oncologist, BC Cancer Agency-Centre for the North, 1215 Lethbridge Street, Prince George, BC, Canada V2M7E9.

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