Patients and methods 460 patients with an average age of 64 years underwent 501 operations for non-spinal skeletal metastases. 7 % were operated for more than one metastasis. Carcinoma of the breast, prostate, kidney and lung were the dominating primary tumors.Results The survival rate was 0.4 at 1 year, 0.3 at 2 years and 0.2 at 3 years. Univariate analysis showed that survival was related to bone localization, skeletal metastatic load, presence of visceral metastases, Karnofsky performance score, primary tumor type, presence of a complete pathological fracture and preoperative hemoglobin content. Multivariate regression analysis showed that pathological fracture, visceral metastases, haemoglobin content < 7 mmol/L and lung cancer were negative prognostic factors for survival. Myeloma was the sole positive prognostic factor for survival.

This data summary is important tool for clinicians to evaluate survival and choose treatment options for patients suffering from metastatic bone disease.

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Testicular maldescent is considered as a predisposing condition for development of testicular malignancy. Male subjects with a history of cryptorchidism have been suggested by some authors to have a 40 to 50 times increased risk of testis cancer. However, the magnitude of this risk is a point of considerable disagreement. Therefore, we studied the records of 506 consecutive patients hospitalized for maldescended testis from January 1949 to December 1960. Testis cancer developed in 6 patients, which when compared to the 1.3 expectant Danish incidence rate, yielded a statistically significant relative risk of 4.7 (95 per cent confidence interval 1.7 to 10.2). Thus, our study confirmed that male subjects with a history of testicular maldescent have an increased risk for testis cancer, although the magnitude of this risk was lower than suggested previously.

BackgroundWe recently developed two Bayesian networks, referred to as the Bayesian-Estimated Tools for Survival (BETS) models, capable of estimating the likelihood of survival at 3 and 12 months following surgery for patients with operable skeletal metastases (BETS-3 and BETS-12, respectively). In this study, we attempted to externally validate the BETS-3 and BETS-12 models using an independent, international dataset.MethodsData were collected from the Scandinavian Skeletal Metastasis Registry for patients with extremity skeletal metastases surgically treated at eight major Scandinavian referral centers between 1999 and 2009. These data were applied to the BETS-3 and BETS-12 models, which generated a probability of survival at 3 and 12 months for each patient. Model robustness was assessed using the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC). An analysis of incorrect estimations was also performed.ResultsOur dataset contained 815 records with adequate follow-up information to establish survival at 12 months. All records were missing data including the surgeon’s estimate of survival, which was previously shown to be a first-degree associate of survival in both models. The AUCs for the BETS-3 and BETS-12 models were 0.79 and 0.76, respectively. Incorrect estimations by both models were more commonly optimistic than pessimistic.ConclusionsThe BETS-3 and BETS-12 models were successfully validated using an independent dataset containing missing data. These models are the first validated tools for accurately estimating postoperative survival in patients with operable skeletal metastases of the extremities and can provide the surgeon with valuable information to support clinical decisions in this patient population.

Background and purposePrevious studies of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) have identified a number of possible prognostic factors; however, the majority of these include highly selected populations, with unclear validation of data and insufficient statistical methods. We identified prognostic factors in a validated, population-based 30-year series of STS treated at a single institution, using an advanced statistical approach.Patients and methodsBetween 1979 and 2008, 922 adult patients from western Denmark were treated at the Aarhus Sarcoma Center for non-metastatic STS in the extremities or trunk. The endpoints were local recurrence (LR) and disease-specific mortality (DSM). Prognostic factors were analyzed using a proportional hazard model, including continuous variables as cubic splines. Directed acyclic graphs were used to depict the causal structure.ResultsThe 5-year LR was 16% and the 5-year DSM was 24%. Important prognostic factors for both LR and DSM were age, duration of symptoms, tumor size, grade, margin, and radiotherapy, while anatomical location (upper, lower extremity, trunk) was prognostic for DSM.InterpretationIn this population-based series of adult, non-metastatic STS, we included directed acyclic graphs, cubic splines, and a competing risk model in order to minimize bias, and demonstrated that these statistical methods are feasible. Using these statistical methods on a large, validated dataset, we excluded depth as a prognostic factor and established that age, duration of symptoms, size, grade, margin, and radiotherapy were important prognostic factors for both local recurrence and disease-specific mortality.

Surgery for pathological subtrochanteric femur fractures is a relatively safe and effective procedure.

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