What are the symptoms of lung cancer bone metastasis?

Lung cancer patients all know that this disease is very torturous because lung cancer cells will continue to spread and metastasize, causing damage to various parts of the body. Bone metastasis of lung cancer is also a common development, and the early symptoms of such cases are not very obvious.

Bone is a common site for lung cancer metastasis, and the incidence of lung cancer bone metastasis is related to the site and pathological type of the primary cancer. Adenocarcinoma has the highest incidence of bone metastasis, followed by small cell lung cancer and squamous cell carcinoma. The lesions of bone metastasis are mainly multiple. The most common sites of occurrence are: ribs, thoracic vertebrae, lumbar vertebrae, and pelvis; adenocarcinoma mainly metastasizes to the chest and pelvis. The main bone metastasis of lung cancer is adenocarcinoma, which often invades the ribs and thoracic vertebrae. The reason may be that adenocarcinoma often occurs in the periphery of the lungs, which can easily cause direct invasion and involve the ribs and thoracic vertebrae. In addition, tumor cells reach the bones through the blood circulation and tend to grow and multiply in the trunk bones containing red bone marrow, but rarely grow in the long bones of the limbs containing yellow bone marrow.

Early symptoms

There are generally no symptoms in the early stages of bone metastasis, but bone isotope scanning can reveal diseased bones. The symptoms of bone metastasis are related to the location and number of tumor metastases. For example, chest pain caused by rib metastasis of lung cancer is often manifested as pain localized in the chest wall with clear tenderness points. Spinal cord metastases cause pain in the middle or lesion area of ​​the back, while bone metastases in the limbs or trunk cause localized pain in that area. Bone metastasis is not a direct cause of threat to the life of lung cancer patients, but if the tumor metastasizes to the body's weight-bearing bones such as the cervical vertebrae, thoracic vertebrae, lumbar vertebrae, etc., it can cause serious consequences such as paralysis. Therefore, patients with bone metastasis of lung cancer should be treated in a timely manner.

Late symptoms

Radiotherapy is the best treatment for late-stage lung cancer bone metastasis and can prevent pathological fractures. A large number of clinical trials have shown that although radiotherapy has achieved good analgesic effects, it often leads to bone marrow suppression and causes toxic reactions in the blood, which becomes an obstacle to the patient's successful treatment. Pain symptoms can be effectively relieved, and the overall effective rate of analgesia is over 80%.

Bone is one of the most common sites of malignant tumor metastasis. Bone metastasis is also one of the main causes of death from lung cancer. The diagnosis rate of lung cancer bone metastasis is relatively low, and bone pain, pathological fractures, local compression and hypercalcemia also complicate treatment.

About 2.3% of patients experience bone metastasis as the first symptom of lung cancer, and about 30% to 40% of patients in the advanced stage will develop bone metastasis. Many complications are also associated with bone metastases, such as severe bone pain, pathological fractures, hypercalcemia, and reduced behavioral ability. Studies have shown that 50% of patients with lung cancer bone metastasis experience bone-related events.