Objective:To investigate the impact of skeletalrelated events on survival in patients with metastatic prostate cancer prescribed long-term androgen deprivation therapy.Methods: This historical cohort study was conducted in two hospitals in Hong Kong. Patients who were diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and prescribed androgen deprivation therapy between January 2006 and December 2011 were included. Details of skeletal-related events and mortality were examined. Results:The median follow-up was 28 (range, 1-97) months. Of 119 patients, 52 (43.7%) developed skeletal-related events throughout the study, and the majority received bone irradiation for pain control. The median actuarial overall survival and cancer-specific survival for patients with skeletalrelated events were significantly shorter than those without skeletal-related events (23 vs 48 months, P=0.003 and 26 vs 97 months, P<0.001, respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed that the adjusted hazard ratio of presence of skeletal-related events on overall and cancer-specific survival was 2.73 (95% confidence interval, 1.46-5.10; P=0.002) and 3.92 (95% confidence interval, 1.87-8.23; P<0.001), respectively. A prostate-specific antigen nadir of >4 ng/mL was an independent poor prognostic factor for overall and cancer-specific survival after development of skeletal-related events (hazard ratio=10.42; 95% confidence interval, 2.10-51.66 and Impact of skeletal-related events on survival in patients with metastatic prostate cancer prescribed androgen deprivation therapy IntroductionProstate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men in developed countries. In the United States, there were 240 890 estimated new cases in 2011, accounting for 29% of all new cancers in men and over 33 000 deaths. 1 According to the Hong Kong Cancer Registry in 2012, prostate cancer was the third most common cancer in men. 2 New knowledge added by this study • Skeletal-related events (SREs) in patients with metastatic prostate cancer significantly worsen their prognosis.• The prevalence of SREs in patients with metastatic prostate cancer is high. Implications for clinical practice or policy • Medications such as bisphosphonate therapy and receptor activator for nuclear factor κB ligand inhibitor should be considered to prevent SREs in patients with metastatic prostate cancer.Hong Kong Med J 2016;22:106-15

As fibre-optic bronchoscopy and CT thorax become more widely used, patients with haemoptysis who had normal CXR and sputum results are more commonly offered both CT and bronchoscopy to exclude lung cancer. Doctors who are under possible litigation pressure arising from missed diagnoses of lung cancer are often exhaustive in their investigations, even when the haemoptysis has been transient. The present study aims to investigate the number of cancer patients who can be detected with the two investigations, and compare recent similar study results with archive results. We found that despite the use of more efficient investigation tools, the yield is paradoxically much lower and, hence, less cost-effective than that of previous studies. The likely reason is that doctors tend to over-investigate, even for short-term, minimal blood-streaked sputum, which is common among simple bronchitis. In order to be more cost-effective, these investigations should be used more selectively and for high risk patients such as those with prolonged haemoptysis and those who are heavy smokers.