Diagnosis of Bone Metastasis in Patients Without a History of Cancer

Diagnosing bone metastasis in patients without a history of cancer remains challenging. Diagnostic evaluation may be prolonged owing to difficulties in distinguishing between bone metastasis and common orthopedic diseases. We hypothesized that bone metastasis due to occult cancer would be more difficult to diagnose than bone metastasis in patients with a history of cancer. Few studies exist on the difficulty of diagnosing bone metastasis in patients without a history of cancer. Therefore, we reviewed the clinical course of patients with bone metastasis between January 2011 and December 2014.

We reviewed patients with bone metastasis to determine the diagnostic rate at first visit, period from symptom-onset to first visit, period from first visit to diagnosis, and presence of severe skeletal-related events at diagnosis, and compared these between 27 patients without a history of cancer (Group A) and 54 patients with a history of cancer (Group B).

The diagnostic rate at first visit was significantly lower (11.5% vs. 52.4%, p=0.00069), the period from first visit to diagnosis was significantly longer (median, 7 weeks vs. 3 weeks, p=0.018), and the presence of severe skeletal-related events at diagnosis was significantly higher (81.4% vs. 50.0%, p=0.05) in patients without a history of cancer compared with those with a history of cancer.

The results of this study indicate that it is difficult to diagnose bone metastasis in patients without a history of cancer. This must be considered in the early diagnosis of bone metastasis to prevent severe skeletal-related events.