Abstract
Aims
Bone is a common site of metastatic disease. Skeletal complications include disabling pain and pathological fractures. Palliative surgery for incurable metastatic bone lesions aims to preserve quality of life and function by providing pain relief and stable mobility with fixation or replacement.
Current literature has few treatment studies. We present a 5 year longitudinal cohort study of surgery for metastatic bone disease at our large teaching hospital reviewing our complication and mortality rates.
Methods
Patients that underwent palliative surgery for metastatic bone lesions were identified from operative records. Demographics, clinical details and outcomes were recorded. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to calculate survivorship.
Results
43 patients were treated for 44 bone metastases (34 IM Nails, 9 prosthetic replacements, 1 plate). The median age at primary diagnosis was 66 (33–92). Lung cancer was the most common primary. 56% presented with complete fractures and 44% with impending fractures (median Mirel score of 10). Pertrochanteric bone lesions were the most common (74%). Two out of 43 patients died within one day of surgery. 30 day mortality was 12% and 45% at 1 year. In those surviving the 30 day perioperative period, we report a complication rate of 14%. One patient had a dislocated prosthesis. Two patients had delayed or non union and two patients had failure of metalwork. No patient required re operation.
Conclusion
Our series observed a 5% fixation failure rate and significant perioperative mortality.
Whilst surgery may offer benefit in the non moribund patient with pathological fracture the decision to offer prophylactic surgery is more difficult in light of the high perioperative mortality seen in our study. Indeed, the patients in our study who died within 24 hours of surgery had prophylactic fixations.
We conclude that surgical intervention must be carefully considered with realistic expectations of outcomes.
