The risk factors of bone metastases in patients with lung cancer

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 8970 - 6
• Main Authors: Zhou, Yang, Yu, Qing-Fu, Peng, Ai-Fen, Tong, Wei-Lai, Liu, Jia-Ming, Liu, Zhi-Li
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 21.08.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 692/4028/67/2324; 692/700/459/1748; Adenocarcinoma; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Alkaline phosphatase; Bone cancer; Bone Neoplasms - epidemiology; Bone Neoplasms - pathology; Bone Neoplasms - secondary; Child; Female; Health risk assessment; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Incidence; Lung cancer; Lung Neoplasms - epidemiology; Lung Neoplasms - pathology; Male; Metastases; Metastasis; Middle Aged; multidisciplinary; Retrospective Studies; Risk Factors; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Spine (lumbar); Thorax; Young Adult
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-09650-y

The risk factors of bone metastasis in patients with lung cancer are still unclear. Here, a retrospective study including a series of consecutive patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer between January 2005 and November 2016 was carried out. A total of 2021 patients with lung cancer were included in this study and 23.9% of them were found to be bone metastases. For patients with bone metastases, adenocarcinoma (62.1%) was the most common pathological subtype, and rib (62.3%) was the most frequent distant metastatic site, followed by thoracic (53.8%) and lumbar spine (40.4%). The histopathologic type, CA-125 level and the concentration of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were identified as the independent risk factors for bone metastases in lung cancer ( P  = 0.002, P  = 0.001 and P  < 0.001). The sensitivities and specificities of diagnosing bone metastasis by CA-125 were 32.1% and 80.8%, and by ALP were 41.3% and 77.1%, respectively. Thus, the incidence of bone metastases in lung cancer patients was relative high, and physicians should pay attention to the histopathologic type, the serum CA-125 and ALP concentrations when patients were firstly diagnosed with lung cancer for early detecting bone metastases.