[Metastases to the bone. Diagnosis, treatment, prognosis (author's transl)]

The prognosis of cancer patients with metastases to the bone has changed little during the past 10 years despite improvement of diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities. A review of the patients treated at the Surgical Clinic of the Erlangen University between 1969 and 1975 showed that out of 78 patients with metastases to the bone only one survived 5 years. In this case a ultraradical method of treatment--hemipelvectomy--was employed. Three groups of comparison were formed; one of them being treated conservatively, the second by palliative osteosynthesis and the third by resection. In the first and second group no patient was alive after 4 1/2 years. The mean survival time was 6,7 months for patients treated conservatively and 11,2 months for those in whom osteosynthesis was used. Patients treated by resection survived 16,3 months on average.