[Origin of surgical metastatic bone disease]

Metastatic bone disease should be considered as a public health problem. The alterations it may cause include pain that is refractory to medical treatment, metabolic instability, pathologic fractures and spinal disorders.

The primary tumor site that led to the need for surgery was investigated in a series of patients with a diagnosis of metastatic bone disease. The bone involved and the histology of the lesions were also studied.

Kidney cancer was the one that most frequently required a surgical procedure; it was followed by breast and prostate cancer. The primary tumor was not found in 6.36% of cases. The bones affected by the lesions studied were as follows in order of occurrence: femur, spine, humerus and pelvis. Adenocarcinoma was the most frequent histological diagnosis.

The diagnosis of metastatic bone disease should always be considered in patients over forty years of age with skeletal lesions, preferably lytic.

In this study, kidney cancer, the proximal limbs and adenocarcinomas were the variables that most frequently produced metastatic bone lesions that warranted a surgical procedure.