OnCo
termsTerm

Bone metastases and skeletal-related events

aka bone metastasis, skeletal metastases, skeletal-related events, skeletal-related event, SRE, bone-only, bone-predominant, osseous metastases, pathological fracture, spinal cord compression

Cancer spread to the bones, most common in prostate, breast, lung, kidney and thyroid cancer and myeloma. It causes pain, fractures and high calcium, and the complications are counted in trials as 'skeletal-related events'.

Skeletal-related events (fracture, need for radiotherapy or surgery to bone, spinal cord compression, hypercalcaemia) are reduced 30-40% by bone-modifying agents (zoledronic acid, denosumab). Single-fraction 8 Gy radiotherapy relieves pain as well as longer courses; SBRT gives more durable relief for spine metastases. Bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals (radium-223, strontium-89) treat bone-predominant prostate cancer, and bone-only disease has a better prognosis than visceral spread in breast cancer. Spinal cord compression is an emergency needing steroids and urgent radiotherapy or surgery.

Category
Anatomy

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