Skeletal-related events and prognosis in urothelial cancer patients with bone metastasis

The aim of the present study was to elucidate the details of bone metastasis (BM) and the resulting skeletal-related events (SREs), and survival and prognostic factors, in urothelial cancer (UC) patients with BM.

A total of 48 UC patients with BM who were treated at our institution between 1994 and 2013 were enrolled. Details of BM and SREs were investigated. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to estimate survival duration. Relationships between several clinical features and survival were analyzed using the log-rank test and the Cox hazard model.

Of the 48 patients, 39 (81.3%) were male, with a median age at diagnosis of BM of 68 years [interquartile range (IQR), 61–75 years]. Frequent metastatic sites included the pelvis (31 patients, 64.6%) and spine (28, 58.3%). SREs occurred in 31 patients (64.6%) at a median duration of 0.9 months (IQR, 0.3–5.4 months) after diagnosis of BM, including radiation therapy (n = 23; 74.2%), spinal cord compression (n = 4; 12.9%), pathological fracture (n = 3; 9.7%) and hypercalcemia (n = 1; 3.2%). Median overall survival periods after diagnosis of BM and SREs were 6.2 and 5.6 months, respectively. On multivariate analysis, factors significantly associated with survival after BM were performance status [hazard ratio (HR) for ≥2 vs. 0–1, 4.94; P = 0.0003], liver metastasis (HR, 4.08; P = 0.0018), chemotherapy after BM (HR, 0.31; P = 0.0018), and use of bone-modifying agents (HR, 0.36; P = 0.0147).

We revealed clinicopathological factors that are predictive of prognosis of UC patients with BM. Although the prognosis is poor, chemotherapy and bone-modifying agents may confer survival benefits.