Pathological Investigation of Vertebral Tumor Metastasis from Unknown Primaries - a Systematic Analysis

Background: This systematic analysis was conducted to investigate pathological diagnosis of vertebral tumormetastasis with unknown primaries.
Methods: Clinical studies conducted to pathologically investigate vertebraltumor metastasis were identified using a predefined search strategy. Pooled diagnosis (PD) of each pathologicalconfirmation was calculated.
Results: For vertebral tumor metastasis, 5 clinical studies which included 762patients were considered eligible for inclusion. Systematic analysis suggested that, for all patients with vertebraltumor metastasis, dominant PD was pathologically confirmed with lung cancer in 21.7% (165/762), with breastcancer in 26.6% (203/762) and with prostate cancer in 19.2% (146/762) . Other diagnosis that could be confirmedincluded lymphoma, multiple myeloma, renal cancer, for example, in this cohort of patients.
Conclusions: Thissystemic analysis suggested that breast, lung and prostate lesions could be the most common pathological typesof cancer for vertebral tumor metastasis formunknown primaries, and other common diagnoses could includelymphoma, multiple myeloma, renal cancer.