Bone metastasis pattern of cancer patients with bone metastasis but no visceral metastasis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Bone metastasis of cancer can be a result from systemic blood spreading or vertebral venous plexus spreading. Systemic blood pathway induced bone metastasis can happen in any bone in the body since the spreading is considered to be random. However, it remains unknown whether there is any pattern of vertebral venous plexus related bone metastasis. In this study, we explored bone metastasis patterns in patients whose primary tumors had been well identified. METHODS: We included 290 consecutive cancer patients with bone metastases but no visceral metastases, out of 2559 patients whose bone metastases were diagnosed by positron emission tomography/computed tomography, between Jan 2015 and Oct 2017 at the Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center. We excluded those with visceral metastasis to ensure that our study focused on metastasis through the vertebral venous plexus. And we analyzed the distribution and pattern of skeletal metastases. RESULTS: = 0.000054). CONCLUSIONS: In patients with only one bone containing a metastasis but no visceral metastasis, bones near the primary were more likely to be first metastasized. This may be a valuable clue to primary tumor sites in patients with cancers of unknown primaries.