title: Long bone metastases as predictors of survival in patients with metastatic renal cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of long bone metastases in renal cancer patients and to evaluate their utility as predictors of survival in this group.
  
  
  METHODS
  This retrospective study included 20 patients with metastatic renal cancer and bone metastases. The patients were referred for regular bone scintigraphy in order to assess disease spread in the skeleton. The patients were divided into two groups: those with 1) metastases in the skeleton (including long bones) and those with 2) metastases in the axial skeleton only.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Bone scintigraphy imaging was performed regularly up to 81 months from the first positive bone scan. During that time 11 deaths (8 among patients with long bone lesions) were recorded. Kaplan-Meyer curves showed that patients with long bone metastases tend to have lower survival probability in comparison to the ones with metastases in other bones.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bone metastases localization seems to influence survival in patients with renal cancer. Long bone-involving spread of the disease is associated with worse survival probability than the spread to the other bones.
authors: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Military Institute of Medicine, Warsaw, Poland. agizewska@wim.mil.pl.
authors: Agnieszka
authors: A
authors: Giżewska
authors: Ewa
authors: E
authors: Witkowska-Patena
authors: Zofia
authors: Z
authors: Stembrowicz-Nowakowska
authors: Andrzej
authors: A
authors: Mazurek
authors: Sebastian
authors: S
authors: Osiecki
authors: Łukasz
authors: Ł
authors: Kowalski
authors: Mirosław
authors: M
authors: Dziuk
authors: Marta
authors: M
authors: Slomka
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000556:secondary*; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012189:Retrospective Studies