Incidence, prevalence, and outcomes of systemic malignancy with bone metastases

Evidence on the incidence, prevalence, and outcomes of bone metastases among patients with systemic malignancy is limited. This study aimed to evaluate it using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.

We collected patients diagnosed with solid malignant tumors deriving outside of the bone, hematologic malignancies, Kaposi sarcoma, lymphoma, and myeloma from the SEER database (from 2010 to 2013). The incidence, prevalence, and outcomes of these systemic malignancies with bone metastases were then analyzed.

A total of 67,605 patients with bone metastases at cancer diagnosis were included. The highest rate of bone metastases was observed in patients with small-cell lung cancer at the time of alternative primary site cancer diagnosis. Among 226,816 cases with metastatic disease, cases with breast cancer (65.58%), and prostate cancer (89.60%) had a high incidence proportion (>10%) of identified bone metastases. Patients with additional bone metastases resulting from prostate cancer, breast cancer, and testis cancer presented the best survival time.

Incidence and prognosis differ considerably among bone metastases with different primary malignancy sites. These results may encourage appropriate application of bone imaging.