Bone Metastases

Pathway

Images

Image Gallery Note: These images open in a new page
1a		Pathological Fracture Secondary to Metastatic Disease Image 1a (Plain Radiograph): Pathological fracture (arrow) secondary to a lytic bone metastasis (arrowhead) in the distal femoral shaft.
2a		Metastatic breast cancer Image 2a (Computed Tomography): Metastatic disease (from primary breast cancer) is present in the thoracic vertebral body (arrow).
2b		Image 2b (Isotope Bone Scan): Bone scan of the same patient demonstrating disseminated metastatic disease in the head of the left humerus, thoracic vertebral bodies, pelvic bones, femur and tibia bilaterally.
3		Bone Metastasis Image 3: Metastatic deposits are present within the medullary cavity of the body and neck of the femur from a transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder.
4a		Bone Metastasis Image 4a (H&E, x2.5) and 4b (H&E, x10): Core biopsy fragments showing bone with infiltrating sheets of malignant cells. The patient had a history of renal cell carcinoma and the features are consistent with metastatic carcinoma.

Teaching Points

Teaching Points

• Initial investigation of choice in suspected metastatic disease is a nuclear medicine scan, with radiography of the area of interest
• Further diagnostic strategy depends on primary cancer type and clinical situation

References

References

Date of literature search: April 2013

The search methodology is available on request. Email

References are graded from Level I to V according to the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Levels of Evidence. Download the document

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