Author’s reply to ‘bone metastasis of limb segments: is mesometastasis another poor prognostic factor of cancer patients?’ Free

We appreciate your interest in our retrospective observational study in which we showed that mesometastasis, a new category of bone metastasis in forearm or lower leg, may be a negative prognostic factor of cancer patients (1).

We also appreciate your thoughtful and constructive suggestions. As you pointed out, the prognosis of cancer patients should depend on a variety of factors, such as primary tumours, including subtypes, the progression of the diseases, complications and metastases in organs (2–4). The median survival time of each cancer varied, but expected mean survival times calculated by the median survival time of each primary tumour were similar between each metastasis group in our study (1). Thus, we additionally analysed the relationship between the subtypes of lung cancer and prognosis, but there was no significant difference between subtypes and survival time (P = 0.492, with log-rank test). This result may imply the limitations of our study, such as the characteristics of our hospital to treat more severe patients, which could potentially lead to bias. The more severe or progressed the diseases are, the fewer differences could be observed, regardless of the primary tumour and subtypes at the point. However, we hope that more doctors and researchers would pay more attention to bone metastasis in specific limb segments because mesometastasis itself may be an independent negative prognostic factor (1).

In line with these results and discussions, researchers should consider the following in future studies: the primary tumour, including subtypes, the specific location and number of metastasis and complications that can affect the prognosis.

Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

References